German grand coalition to remain despite losses in regional elections – minister

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said that the national ruling alliance would stick together despite Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partner suffering losses in a regional poll, Reuters reports. “The grand coalition will hold together because the SPD, CDU and CSU would otherwise lose a huge amount of voters’ trust,” Altmaier, a member of Merkel’s CDU, told Handelsblatt. The CSU is the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU and is part of the federal coalition along with the CDU and SPD. Merkel said on Monday that her fourth term as chancellor would be her last and that she would step down as the CDU leader.