BERLIN, April 4 (Reuters) – The resignation of Angela Merkel’s main coalition partner Guido Westerwelle as leader of the Free Democrats could be a relief for Germany’s chancellor, who may also need a new foreign minister if his party ousts him.

One government source spoke of a sense of relief in Berlin that Westerwelle had accepted “the inevitable” by resigning as head of the FDP, junior partner in Merkel’s coalition, after state election failures and a long-simmering internal revolt.

Westerwelle also relinquished his post as deputy chancellor, which generally goes with the leadership of the second force in the ruling coalition, but hoped to hang onto his cabinet post.

However, it was unclear whether his low popularity ratings and the dissatisfaction in the FDP would leave enough support to remain foreign minister — where the 49-year-old has not shone.

Westerwelle was embarrassed by Wikileaks of U.S. diplomatic cables last year calling him vain and arrogant and has been criticised for isolating Germany within NATO with the abstention from a U.N. vote authorising military action over Libya.

“It’s good for Merkel because Westerwelle has lost so much trust in his party she could not be sure they would follow the government’s lead, which would be very damaging,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University.

With German coalition politics requiring whoever leads the junior partner to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) to hold a suitably senior cabinet post, it was possible that Westerwelle or the FDP Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle could be removed.

BERLIN, April 3 (Reuters) – German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle stepped down as head of the Free Democrats (FDP) on Sunday after a string of state election failures for the junior partners in Angela Merkel’s coalition government.

“After 10 years as party chairman, I will not run for the office again at the coming federal party congress,” Westerwelle told reporters.

He said he intended to remain foreign minister, though it was not entirely certain whether his position in the party would be strong enough for him to retain this job when the FDP’s executive meets on Monday to discuss his future.

Westerwelle is widely blamed for the FDP’s plunge in support to around 5 percent from its record 14.6 percent in the 2009 federal elections when Merkel was re-elected.

One party rebel last year called him a “millstone around the neck” of the FDP, which has been nicknamed the “party of doctors and dentists” and calls itself the “liberal party”. It focuses on individual rights and defending the interests of business.

But analysts did not expect the turmoil in the FDP, which has weighed on the performance of the coalition, to lead to an early election in the way that Merkel’s Social Democrat (SPD) predecessor Gerhard Schroeder ended up losing power in 2005.

Westerwelle, 49, said stepping down was made easier by the presence of “a whole number of young personalities ready to rise up and take over the leadership of the party”. This is likely to occur at the upcoming party congress in May.

FRANKFURT, March 31 (Reuters) – Germany said on Thursday it would raise security requirements at its 17 nuclear plants to ensure they can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes, after Japan’s nuclear crisis sparked a U-turn in German policy.

Outlining the task of a new safety committee which presents its first findings in May, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said safety had to be completely reviewed.

“It’s a question of whether safety has to be redefined in the light of new estimates,” he told a news conference. “What would happen if an even bigger earthquake hit Germany?”

Experts doubt whether overhauling Germany’s oldest nuclear reactors against such scenarios, also including extreme climate change impacts such as drought, would be cost effective, meaning a current moratorium on such plants could be made permanent.

Nuclear power has long been unpopular in Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision last year to extend the life of nuclear plants was a major factor in her party losing power after 60 years in a prosperous conservative state on Sunday. [ID:nLDE72T07N]

She reversed this after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japanese nuclear plants and now believes Germany must exit quickly from nuclear power. She imposed a 3-month moratorium on the oldest seven of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants.

Utility RWE (RWEG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said late on Thursday it would lodge a legal complaint against the German state of Hesse for ordering a 3-month shutdown of RWE’s nuclear power plant Biblis A as part of the moratorium.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany said on Thursday it would raise security requirements at its 17 nuclear plants to ensure they can withstand plane crashes and earthquakes, after Japan’s nuclear crisis sparked a U-turn in German policy.

Outlining the task of a new safety committee which presents its first findings in May, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said safety had to be completely reviewed.

“It’s a question of whether safety has to be redefined in the light of new estimates,” he told a news conference. “What would happen if an even bigger earthquake hit Germany?”

Experts doubt whether overhauling Germany’s oldest nuclear reactors against such scenarios, also including extreme climate change impacts such as drought, would be cost effective, meaning a current moratorium on such plants could be made permanent.

Nuclear power has long been unpopular in Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision last year to extend the life of nuclear plants was a major factor in her party losing power after 60 years in a prosperous conservative state on Sunday. [ID:nLDE72T07N]

She reversed this after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japanese nuclear plants and now believes Germany must exit quickly from nuclear power. She imposed a three-month moratorium on the oldest seven of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants.

Senior conservatives doubt whether any of these plants dating from before 1980 will ever restart. [ID:nLDE72E0KG]

BERLIN, March 31 (Reuters) – Germany must secure its nuclear plants against all eventualities including plane crashes and earthquakes for their remaining lifespan and ensure there are sufficient water supplies for cooling, Berlin said on Thursday.

Outlining the task of a new safety committee which presents its first findings in May, after Japan’s nuclear crisis sparked a dramatic U-turn in German nuclear policy, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said safety had to be completely reviewed.

“It’s a question of whether safety has to be redefined in the light of new estimates,” he told a news conference. “What would happen if an even bigger earthquake hit Germany?”

Experts doubt whether overhauling Germany’s oldest nuclear reactors against such scenarios, also including extreme climate change impacts such as drought, would be cost effective, meaning a current moratorium on such plants could be made permanent.

Nuclear power has long been unpopular in Germany and Angela Merkel’s decision last year to extend the life of nuclear plants was a major factor in her party losing power after 60 years in a prosperous conservative state on Sunday. [ID:nLDE72T07N]

She reversed this after the massive Japanese earthquake and tsunami hit nuclear plants and now believes Germany must exit quickly from nuclear power. She imposed a three-month moratorium on the oldest seven of Germany’s 17 nuclear plants.

Senior conservatives doubt whether any of these plants dating from before 1980 will ever restart. [ID:nLDE72E0KG]

BERLIN, March 28 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday it would take her Christian Democrats a long time to overcome the pain of an election defeat in their conservative heartland where the Greens won on fears about nuclear power.

The environmentalist party is expected to take office in a coalition with the Social Democrats after the vote on Sunday in the prosperous southwestern region of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where Merkel’s party had ruled for nearly 60 years. [ID:nLDE72Q0E6]

“It’s a deep wound in the history of Baden-Wuerttemberg and also in the history of the CDU,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “The pain from this loss won’t go away in just one day. We’ll have to work for a long time to overcome the pain from this defeat.”

She said, however, that she had no plans to reshuffle her cabinet or radically change her policy course in response to the defeat. Her Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, head of the increasingly unpopular Free Democrats (FDP), was peppered with questions about his future but said he would not step down.

Worries about nuclear power following Japan’s earthquake and tsunami dominated the campaign and mobilised votes for the anti-nuclear Greens, who are set to lead a state government in Germany for the first time.

Merkel, an advocate of nuclear power, reversed course after damage to the Fukushima plant in Japan sparked fears about radiation leaks, announcing plans temporarily to shutter the seven oldest nuclear plants in the country in a move some voters saw as a ploy to shore up support.

Merkel dismissed the critics on Monday, telling a news conference her views on the safety of nuclear power had changed since Japan.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Angela Merkel will share the blame for her Christian Democrats’ election rout in the German conservative heartland on Sunday despite her government’s bid to portray itself as hapless victim of events in Japan and Libya.

Merkel handed the Greens victory in Baden-Wuerttemberg with her mishandling of the nuclear issue, likely resulting in the humiliation of the Greens installing their first state premier on CDU turf; but it is unlikely to cost the chancellor her job.

This is not for lack of criticism of the way Merkel or her main ally, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democrats (FDP), have done their job or managed the campaign.

“This is a disaster for the CDU and there will be big discussions in the party,” said Thorsten Faas, a professor of politics at Mannheim University in Baden-Wuerttemberg, who sees a chance Westerwelle might have to quit the FDP leadership.

Days before the election, when it became crystal clear the CDU would lose control of a state it has governed since 1953 — relatively well, going by the strong economy and low crime and jobless rates — criticism of Merkel’s nuclear and foreign policy decisions frothed on German newspapers’ front pages.

Eminent conservatives balked at her decision to abstain in a U.N. vote on military action over Libya and warned against the dangers of what her former mentor Helmut Kohl said would be an “overhasty, solitary German exit from nuclear energy.”

Ex-CDU defense minister Volker Ruehe was quoted on the cover of the conservative Welt am Sonntag newspaper as saying that abstaining on Libya was a “serious mistake of historic dimensions.” CDU deputy whip Michael Fuchs said the German public had been perplexed.

BERLIN (Reuters) – More than 200,000 people took part in anti-nuclear protests in Germany on Saturday on the eve of state elections where criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s nuclear policies has already given her opposition the edge.

Organizers called it the biggest anti-nuclear demonstration Germany has seen, with police estimating 100,000 turned out in Berlin alone. Hamburg, Munich and Cologne also saw big rallies.

Protesters called for all of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants to be shut down in the light in the nuclear breakdown in Japan, caused by the earthquake and tsunami. “Fukushima is a warning — close all nuclear plants,” was one of the slogans.

The opposition Greens and Social Democrats (SPD), heading for a victory in Sunday’s election in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg which Merkel’s conservatives have run for nearly 60 years, denounced her nuclear power U-turn.

After passing a disputed law to extend the life spans of Germany’s nuclear power plants last year and calling it a safe source of energy, Merkel’s government closed down seven plants last week because of Japan’s nuclear disaster and postponed plans to extend the use of atomic energy.

“We are demonstrating here today against a historically bad decision,” said Greens parliamentary chief Juergen Trittin, referring to the nuclear power extension last year.

Baden-Wuerttemberg in southwestern Germany is an industrial powerhouse where the Greens have already been boosted by local protests against a major infrastructure project in Stuttgart backed by Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has publicly split with France and Britain over military action in Libya, a stance that highlights foreign policy divisions in the European Union and could have wider policy ramifications.

Germany was one of five countries that abstained in the United Nations Security Council vote Thursday that authorised force against Libya. The other four were the fast-rising “BRIC” nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Berlin had repeatedly made clear its opposition to military involvement, saying it was not convinced a no-fly zone or eventual air strikes would be effective in bringing down Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi or protecting Libyan civilians.

In that regard its decision to abstain, breaking ranks with the European Union’s two diplomatic heavyweights France and Britain, was not a surprise. But it creates a clear separation among the EU’s major powers at a time when the bloc is trying to forge a more united foreign and security policy.

And it risks reinforcing an impression among some EU states that Germany goes it alone when it suits its domestic interests, while demanding other countries override domestic concerns when Berlin needs them to support EU goals, such as on the economy.

Berlin’s caution is largely driven by domestic political considerations, said Nick Witney, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former director-general of security policy at Britain’s ministry of defence.

Many German voters are already fed up with involvement in Afghanistan, and Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to keep voters on side. Her party faces six regional elections this year, including possible defeat in a vote in the Baden-Wuerttenberg region on March 27, having already lost a vote in Hamburg.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany is discussing with NATO whether it could take on AWACS aerial reconnaissance duties in Afghanistan, after opting against joining military operations in Libya, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday.

The NATO alliance is operating 24-hour surveillance of Libya with AWACS reconnaissance aircraft which are based in Germany, and about a third of the NATO AWACS crews are Germans.

But Berlin abstained on Thursday from voting for a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya, which its EU allies Britain and France supported, due to worries there would be civilian victims as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As everyone knows Germany will not take part in any military measures and for this reason only … we abstained in the vote,” Merkel told a news conference.

“What we are in talks about with NATO is the question whether in the framework of all the NATO tasks, we could take on tasks such as in the area of AWACS in Afghanistan,” she said, adding that she would attend talks on Libya which President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to host on Saturday.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere are discussing this option with the NATO alliance, she added.

German politicians had earlier said Berlin might contribute indirectly to the international mission by freeing U.S. reconnaissance plane crews needed for Libya.