Green leader: 'Long way' to go in talks to form German govt

A leader of one of the three parties holding talks on forming a new German government says the discussions have “a long way to go” and will have to bridge significant policy differences

BERLIN -- A leader of one of the three parties holding talks on forming a new German government says the discussions have “a long way to go” and will have to bridge significant policy differences.

The center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats held their first round of talks Thursday on a possible coalition. If they eventually succeed, the alliance would send outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc into opposition after her 16 years leading Europe's biggest economy.

More talks are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. But the process of putting together a new government can take weeks or months in Germany, and Merkel's outgoing government will stay in office in the meantime.

“We have a long way to go, and it will get very arduous," Robert Habeck, one of the Greens' two leaders, told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview broadcast Saturday. “And the public will see that there are some conflicts between the possible coalition partners.”