Editing Politics of Germany (section)

=== 2013–2017 ===
{{main article|2013 German federal election}}

The 18th federal elections in Germany resulted in the re-election of [[Angela Merkel]] and her Christian democratic parliamentary group of the parties [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|CDU]] and CSU, receiving 41.5% of all votes. Following Merkel's first two historically low results, her third campaign marked the CDU/CSU's best result since 1994 and only for the second time in German history the possibility of gaining an absolute majority. Their former coalition partner, the FDP, narrowly failed to reach the 5% threshold and did not gain seats in the [[Bundestag]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/europe-travel/germanys-left-turn-fm00xmlrv2z |title=Germany's Left Turn |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=2013-10-22 |access-date=2019-02-05}}</ref>

Not having reached an absolute majority, the CDU/CSU formed a [[Grand coalition (Germany)|grand coalition]] with the social-democratic [[SPD]] after the longest coalition talks in history, making the head of the party [[Sigmar Gabriel]] [[Vice-Chancellor of Germany|vice-chancellor]] and federal [[Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy|minister for economic affairs and energy]]. Together they held 504 of a total 631 seats (CDU/CSU 311 and SPD 193). The only two opposition parties were The Left (64 seats) and Alliance '90/The Greens (63 seats), which was acknowledged as creating a critical situation in which the opposition parties did not even have enough seats to use the special controlling powers of the opposition.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/plenum/sitzverteilung18.html |title=Deutscher Bundestag: Sitzverteilung des 18. Deutschen Bundestages |access-date=2014-01-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140121013840/http://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/plenum/sitzverteilung18.html |archive-date=21 January 2014 |df=dmy-all }}</ref>