Germany: Chancellor Gerhard Schröder will meet Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Angela Merkel this afternoon to discuss forming a grand coalition already dubbed the "elephant's wedding".
The exploratory talks - held on neutral territory near the Reichstag - will be more a media display than a discussion of content. Neither party has enough support to build a coalition with their preferred partners following Sunday's inconclusive election.
Today's talks will include Social Democrat (SPD) Franz Müntefering and Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber, head of the CDU sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
It's clear that no solution will be found today to the joint claim of Mr Schröder and Dr Merkel to the post of chancellor.
"(Schröder) won't succeed that we will give up our leadership claim," said Dr Merkel in yesterday's Stern magazine.
Mr Müntefering kicked off coalition talks yesterday when he met the Green Party, the SPD's government partner of seven years, currently being wooed by the CDU.
"For us it is decisive that we come to a stable arrangement and are not aligned with minorities," said Mr Müntefering after the talks, in a clear signal to the Left Party. Several Left Party MPs said yesterday they would be prepared to vote for Mr Schröder to give him the required majority to be re-elected chancellor.
Mr Müntefering said the SPD's first preference was still a coalition with the Green Party and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). Mr Müntefering said the "Red-Green" coalition could work again.
"We are aware that for that we need another coalition partner," he said, apparently unfazed that FDP leaders have publicly mocked as "love letters" his invitation to talks.
"Whoever refuses, refuses what democracy expects from politicians," said Mr Müntefering.
Green Party leaders said they would talk with the CDU tomorrow, but said a three-way coalition would be "extremely difficult" to imagine with FDP leader Guido Westerwelle.
"Westerwelle personifies the market radical view," said Reinhard Bütikofer, the Green Party co-leader, adding that his party would never allow FDP neo-liberal policies to be slipped in "through the back door".
A CDU coalition with the FDP and the Green Party is seen as Dr Merkel's only chance to form a government and become chancellor.
The preferred CDU-FDP coalition has just 286 seats in the new Bundestag, at least 14 short of a majority.
But Dr Merkel will need all her political skill to bring together the FDP and Greens; both parties have already said the other will have to "completely reinvent themselves" to make a coalition possible.
Several CDU figures, including foreign policy expert Wolfgang Schäuble expressed confidence that the Greens could be won over.
"The common ground is large enough if I have followed correctly the Green debates in the last years on business finance, social politics - even family politics," said Mr Schäuble to the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Their different positions on whether or not to run down German nuclear power plants was not an "insurmountable problem", he said.
Leading Green politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit urged the German Greens to arise from its "Procrustean bed" with the SPD and seek new alliances.
"The tattered parliamentary democracy must be saved from the Schröder-esque chancellor democracy," he wrote in yesterday's Tageszeitung newspaper.