BERLIN (AP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel and members of the center-left party that came a distant second in last month's national election held a first round of preliminary talks Friday on forming the country's next government.
The general secretary of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, Hermann Groehe, said talks with the Social Democratic Party were held in a "good, sober and constructive atmosphere" and a second meeting would take place Oct. 14.
Groehe said the meeting focused on the common ground between the parties, not their differences. During the campaign, the Social Democrats' main candidate, Peer Steinbrueck, had called for a national minimum wage and tax increases for high earners - both of which Merkel's conservatives have rejected.
The two parties that make up Merkel's Union bloc won 41.5 percent of the vote but fell five seats short of a parliamentary majority. Her former coalition partner, the Free Democrats, failed to win any seats.
A coalition with the SPD, which won 25.7 percent of the vote, would have a healthy parliamentary majority and ensure Merkel a third term. But many grassroots Social Democrats and some in the party leadership are wary of again being the junior partner in a "grand coalition" like the one that governed Germany during Merkel's first term from 2005 to 2009.
