Episode Notes:

On Sunday, Germany went to the polls. The elections produced a narrow victory for the Social Democrats, who edged out the Christian Democrats by less than a million votes. What this means, however, will be decided by coalition talks over the coming months.

Joining us to discuss the possible outcomes and their importance is Ulrike Franke. Ulrike is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) where she leads the Technology and European Power Initiative. For German language listeners she also runs the Sicherheitshalber Podcast, that she loosely translated as “For Security Sake.”

[ 00:56 ] Overview of the elections and their outcome

[ 03:29 ] Impact on German foreign policy

[ 07:31 ] Implications for U.S.-German ties

[ 10:09 ] Retrospective on Merkel

[ 12:29 ] What's next for Merkel