Observer: Money talks (FT)

A war has broken out in Chancellor Angela Merkel's left-right coalition.

With the Social Democrats and their Christian Democratic rivals at each other's throats over healthcare reform, some pundits are putting their money on an imminent collapse of the government. Not so fast, say cynical observers of the Bundestag, parliament's lower house, which has, if not the last, at least the weightiest word in matters pertaining to early elections and deposing chancellors.

One thing to bear in mind, these people argue, is that members of the house will not be entitled to their generous parliamentary pensions for the current legislature until the end of next year, when this entitlement kicks in. Doing anything that would lead to the dissolution of the Bundestag before this trigger date would make very little sense financially. If Merkel's legislators have not lost their business acumen, it looks as though the chancellor might have a bit more time to work out a peace deal between her alliance's warring factions.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006