Merkel takes first step for coalition

Two weeks after winning elections with a reduced majority, German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday took a first step toward forming a government by trying to unite her bitterly divided conservative camp.

Merkel met for closed-door talks with her Bavarian CSU allies led by Horst Seehofer, who blames her open-door refugee policy for the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Seehofer -- who faces internal challengers, and state elections next year -- has revived his calls to cap refugee numbers at 200,000 a year, a demand Merkel has consistently rejected as unconstitutional.

In an opening salvo Sunday, the CSU published a 10-point list of demands, including a refugee "upper limit", a broad return to the conservative roots of the centre-right alliance, and a committment to "healthy patriotism".

"We must fight the AfD head-on -- and fight to get their voters back," said the text published in mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag, which suggested that "conservatism is sexy again".

The emergence of the anti-immigration AfD, which scored 12.6 percent, has stunned Germany by breaking a long-standing taboo on hard-right parties sitting in the Bundestag.

Its success came at the expense of the mainstream parties, making it harder for Merkel to form a working majority.

Her best shot now -- if she wants to avoid fresh elections that could further boost the AfD -- is an alliance with two other parties that make for odd bedfellows, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the left-leaning Greens.

Such a power pact -- dubbed a "Jamaica coalition" because the three party colours match those of the Caribbean nation's flag -- would be a first at the national level in Germany.

In the talks to come, likely to take weeks, all players will fight for ministerial posts and issues from EU relations to climate policy.

All must give a little to reach a compromise -- but not too much, to avoid charges from their own party bases that they are selling out in a grab for power.