Germany will finally get a conservative chancellor

But at a price... Times Online and AP - Angela Merkel cleared the last major hurdle on her road to becoming Germany’s first woman chancellor, as members of her conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats today gave their coalition deal overwhelming - if decidedly unenthusiastic - approval. The ratification set the "grand coalition" of Germany’s biggest parties on course to take power and battle sluggish growth in Europe’s biggest economy, an 11-percent unemployment rate and a runaway budget deficit. Only a handful of dissenters opposed the hard-won agreement at separate conventions of Frau Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, its Bavaria-only Christian Social Union sister party and the Social Democrats of Gerhard Schroeder, the outgoing chancellor. The approval cleared the way for parliament to elect Frau Merkel, 51, for a four-year term as chancellor on November 22 and with the coalition commanding 448 seats in the 614-seat Bundestag, her election is now a near-certainty. But even as they offered their backing, delegates lined up to record reservations about the accord - underlining the tensions that will face the forced marriage that emerged from Germany’s inconclusive September 18 election. The deal, which features a raft of tax rises and subsidy cuts meant partly to plug a budget shortfall of £23 billion has already attracted strong criticism from business, unions and commentators. That's a tough win for conservatives, having to agree to a tax hike in order to get their candidate in office. But at least it's a start. It's hard to imagine things getting any worse than 11% unemployment. And check out VDH's latest article debunking the European utopia myth. You think $2.65 a gallon for gas is bad? Europe is at nearly twice that.