Bild

The ongoing struggle over forming a government in Berlin is not only about the capital's next coalition. Commentators point out that the outcome will also shape future power relations in the Bundesrat, Germany's chamber of the states. At the start of 2026, the Union held the post of minister-president in eight of the sixteen federal states, all of them men, and the Berlin negotiations could shift that balance.

Johann Wadephul is Germany's foreign minister, and searches for his name are rising after reports that he met Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in New York. According to Bild, this was the first meeting between the German and Russian foreign ministers since 2022, making it a notable diplomatic moment amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. German readers appear to be looking up who Wadephul is and what the talks involved, though the posts collected do not detail the outcome.

Commentators note with surprise that Bild, the tabloid long aligned with the Union, has turned on Jens Spahn and is being credited with ending his political standing. The irony of the party's traditionally friendly paper doing the damage is the main point of discussion among German political observers.