Eurointelligence has some interesting commentary regarding FDP's decision to back out of coalition talks with Angela Merkel. Let's tune in.

We noted a week ago that the decision by the FDP to pull out of the Jamaica-coalition talks has strengthened the party. The latest poll, by Civey, shows a continuation of that trend. The FDP is now at 15%, just behind the SPD, which is stable at 19%. The CDU is at 30%, while the AfD is at 13%. Other polls show a different picture, though.

On the grand coalition, there has been no material movement – only a lot of talks and demands. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is going to meet the party leaders – of CDU, CSU, and SPD – today to get them to begin talks. Angela Merkel said she wants the coalition up and running by December, which we think is a highly unrealistic schedule. She already came out with a list of red lines – a budget surplus, SPD agreement on the upper ceiling of 200,000 refugees the CDU/CSU's agreed, and tax cuts; while the SPD is rolling out its own list of largely incompatible demands, including the abolition of private health insurance, and a generalised social security insurance not linked to employment. Within the CDU there are some who prefer a minority government, or even another attempt to construct a Jamaica-coalition.

In his FT column, Wolfgang Munchau makes the point that another grand coalition would constitute a massive boon to the FDP, whose chairman Christian Lindner, is likely to emerge from the political gridlock in Berlin as the winner. If the two large parties are forced into another grand coalition, they will disappoint their own party bases and drive voters to the outer fringes of German politics. This may well be the last grand coalition, because the decline in the vote shares of CDU/CSU and SPD will make a similar formation impossible in the future. One question one could ask is whether, in the long run, a national-conservative FDP could overtake the CDU as the main party on the centre-right.