Under Pressure

Is German chancellor Gerhard Schröder's coalition government in danger of falling apart? A lot depends on negotiations this week in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where neither the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) nor the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) managed to win a majority in a February state election.

After incumbent SPD state premier Heide Simonis failed to build a minority government, the SPD and CDU have opened talks on a possible "grand coalition." The CDU has the advantage: by walking away, it would trigger new state elections and almost certainly win. Failure to strike a...