SGK

Spot on. Except being in the EU, of course. I was going to post this news but couldn't muster the motivation. At least the German people have the evidence in front of their nose that elections are a sham and their ruling elite are in it for their personal ambition.

Both sides said they wouldn't do this, but now have because they couldn't get their hands on power any other way. Merkel is a disaster waiting to happen. It really is a lose-lose situation.

The FDP are not anti-EU, although they are a quiet party and I haven't heard from them much recently. I was very surprised how quiet they were leading in to the election. And they are not Toryish either, they are essentially the liberals.

The FDP have gained a measure of respect these last weeks, however, because they held themselves back from the rush to power. They could have formed a three-way coallition with the labour-green government of the last two terms but stated that they couldn't honourably do so, though I suspect they would have gone for a conservative-green-liberal compromise.

The only real positive is it may derail the EU push to spark to life the drive to unification. Germany will be too involved with making this work / infighting. So the EU will either be without one of its major driving forces or, conversely, it could feel it 'needs' to push ahead to help the situation.