German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to meet the leaders of the nation's pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the environmental Greens in a bid to end the country's political crisis triggered by the collapse of coalition talks.
The German head of state is to hold talks on Tuesday with FDP chief Christian Lindner and Green Party leaders Simone Peter and Cem Ozdemir to establish whether there is any chance of resurrecting negotiations to forge a new three-way coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel's current coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), has repeatedly rejected rejoining a new alliance headed by the chancellor after it suffered its worst result since 1949 in the September election.
As result, an alliance led by Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and including the Greens and FDP was the only coalition option the chancellor had after September's inconclusive election.
The September 24 election resulted in a sharp fall in support for the CDU and its Bavarian-based Christian Social Union (CSU) allies.
However, SPD parliamentary leader Andrea Nahles declined on Tuesday to rule out a possible compromise to end the current crisis, which would be for her party to tolerate a minority government headed by Merkel.
The chancellor said on Monday that she would prefer early elections rather than the uncertainty of a minority government.
But Nahles told German public television ZDF on Tuesday that the SPD lending support to a CDU-led minority government was something that needed to be discussed.
"We should talk about how we can shape a process that will lead our country to a stable, new government," Nahles told ZDF.
Steinmeier has so far rejected calling early elections as way out of the impasse and instead called on the party leaders to reconsider their positions on the coalition negotiations.
