A grand coalition headed by Ms. Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has taken over the reins of government in Germany from the seven-year-long administration of Mr. Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In the general election held in September, the center-right CDU failed to secure a majority. But with its ally, the Christian Social Union, it built the strongest coalition in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament. Separate negotiations between the CDU-CSU and the SPD, the second largest party, and smaller parties ended in failure. Although negotiations toward the CDU-CSU-SPD grand coalition also ran into difficulties, the end result is the first unorthodox change of government in Germany since the 1960s.

The Schroeder administration took over from the government of Mr. Helmut Kohl, which had realized the unification of East and West Germany. It emphasized social democratic economic policies at home and, together with France, was the key driving force for the European Union. Mr. Schroeder is a good friend of President Jacques Chirac of France. As the question of whether to invade Iraq created cracks in the EU, the two leaders drew a line between themselves and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who supported participation in the war. With France and Russia, Germany formed a bloc against the United States and Britain.

At the same time, it must be noted that the Schroeder administration broke a postwar taboo in war-defeated Germany by opening the way for the dispatch abroad of German troops, as peacekeeping forces and within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to conflict-torn Kosovo, Macedonia and Afghanistan. For Germany, this represented a second historic departure from policies of the early postwar period, and followed the unification of East and West Germany. Yet structural problems, such as a record-high fiscal deficit and the worst unemployment since 1945 remain unsolved. The Merkel administration has inherited them.