State Level
Grand coalitions are more common at the state level in Germany, because other parties might be stronger there than they are on the federal level. For example in several East German states, the party Die Linke often makes it difficult to form a coalition of SPD and Greens or CDU and FDP. As of November 2011, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia are governed by coalitions between the CDU and the SPD.
Read more about this topic: Grand Coalition (Germany)
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or level:
“The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state.... It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831)
“There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)