SPD lawmaker: German coalition deal an 'excellent result'

(7 Feb 2018) Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and Germany's main centre-left party reached an agreement to form a new coalition government on Wednesday after a final session of negotiations that dragged on for 24 hours. On Wednesday, senior Social Democrat lawmaker Hubertus Heil praised the agreement and said the parties will "negotiate further aspects" of their coalition later today. "We are still discussing the distribution of posts, but I am happy that the SPD could assign essential ministries," he told the media outside CDU headquarters. According to news agency dpa, citing unidentified sources, the Social Democrats were set to get the foreign, labour and finance ministries - the latter a major prize, held by Merkel's Christian Democratic Union for the past eight years. The interior ministry, also previously held by the CDU, would go to the Christian Social Union. The deal between Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, and the centre-left Social Democrats won't bring an immediate end to the political limbo following Germany's September 24 election. The country has already broken its post-World War II record for the longest time from an election to the swearing-in of a new government. A deal will be put to a ballot of the Social Democrats' more than 460,000 members, a process that will take a few weeks. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/21a7ba7f38f20ef8435ac85435189150 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork