BERLIN (Reuters) – In an extremely tight German state election that seemed to produce few clearcut winners, there was no argument over who the biggest loser was — Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Her Christian Democrats (CDU), led by rising star David McAllister, had convinced themselves over the past week that they were on the verge of a stunning come-from-behind victory in Lower Saxony, a major agricultural and industrial region that is Germany’s closest approximation to a swing state.

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) – Germany and France will put on a show of total unity this week to mark the 50th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty that cemented their post-war reconciliation.

But beneath the public display of friendship, the Franco-German motor that has long driven Europe is sputtering and unlikely to offer new policy breakthroughs this year to help speed the euro zone fully out of its crisis.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A prominent regional politician who has been a member of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) for more than four decades has quit the party and joined its far-left rivals in a blow for the SPD days before a state election.

Sigrid Leuschner, an SPD lawmaker in the Lower Saxony assembly for 19 years, said her decision to move to the Left Party was based on concerns that the SPD had become “devoid of substance”.

BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany (Reuters) – A decade and a half ago, Gerhard Schroeder’s resounding victory in a state vote in Lower Saxony gave his Social Democrats (SPD) the momentum they needed to seize power in Germany after 16 long years of conservative rule under Helmut Kohl.

The SPD is hoping for a similar game-changing win on January 20 when voters in the large western region go to the polls again, just eight months before Germany holds a federal election.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Back in May, as the euro zone veered deeper into crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman penned one of his gloomiest columns about the single currency, a piece in the New York Times entitled “Apocalypse Fairly Soon”.

“Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams,” Krugman wrote. “We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years.”

BERLIN, Dec 28 (Reuters) – Back in May, as the euro zone
veered deeper into crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul
Krugman penned one of his gloomiest columns about the single
currency, a piece in the New York Times entitled “Apocalypse
Fairly Soon”.

“Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that
grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political
union — could come apart at the seams,” Krugman wrote. “We’re
not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall
apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years.”

BERLIN (Reuters) – German politicians from across the political spectrum criticized Deutsche Bank co-CEO Juergen Fitschen on Monday following reports he had called a senior local politician to complain about a raid on the bank’s Frankfurt headquarters last week.

Fitschen and Stefan Krause, the bank’s chief financial officer, are among 25 employees being investigated on suspicion of tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice over trade in carbon permits designed to combat global warming.

BRUSSELS, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Germany rebuffed calls for more
financial risk-sharing in the euro zone on Friday, rejecting a
proposal for a fund to help debt-laden countries cope with
economic shocks and leaving open who would pay to wind down
stricken banks.

With an eye on a general election next year, Chancellor
Angela Merkel made EU officials drop any mention of a
shock-absorber fund, backed by France and southern European
states, from the conclusions of a two-day European Union summit.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European leaders agreed on Friday to press on with further steps to tackle their debt crisis but German Chancellor Angela Merkel threw out a proposal to boost risk-sharing with a fund to help euro zone states in trouble.

Germany’s rejection of an idea strongly backed by France showed the potential for more tensions over crisis management, a day after the bloc clinched a deal on eurozone-wide banking supervision and approved long-delayed aid to Greece.