Merz and Scholz after talks. AfD confirms controversial return

The Christian Democrat candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the acting head of government, Olaf Scholz, held preliminary talks on forming a coalition government after the Bundestag elections. Meanwhile, the AfD announced that Maximilian Krah, who had been expelled from the party earlier, would be returning to its ranks in parliament. The situation in Germany after the elections was also discussed by guests of "Punkt Widzenia Szubartowicza".

Friedrich Merz met with the acting head of government , Olaf Scholz, at the Chancellery in Berlin. As established by the dpa agency, the conversation, which lasted about 1.5 hours, most likely focused on the organization of the transition period between Sunday's Bundestag elections and the formation of a new government .

Merz, who is likely to take over as German chancellor, has previously said he hopes to quickly start coalition negotiations with Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) .

He said that the key topics will be foreign policy, migration and the economy . The CDU leader assumes that it will be possible to "achieve a good coalition agreement with the Social Democrats". He also expressed hope that a new, capable government with a majority will be formed in the Bundestag before Easter .

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On behalf of the Christian Democrats, the talks will be led by party leaders Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Markus Soeder (CSU). The latter of the politicians stated that he wants a German government "that the world pays attention to, that Europe listens to and that respects its citizens."

Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came second in the election, confirmed that Maximilian Krah, who was expelled from its European Parliament caucus, will be among its MEPs in the new parliament.

The controversial politician was the AfD candidate in last year's European elections but was excluded after comments in which he minimized German crimes during World War II. In Sunday's Bundestag elections, he ran for the AfD in Saxony, winning more than 44 percent of the vote.

Krah's statements led to the AfD being expelled from the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament, where it sat alongside the French National Rally (RN) and the Italian League .

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The German politician also made headlines after one of his aides was arrested on suspicion of spying for China and after he was forced to deny allegations that he had accepted money to spread a pro-Russian stance on a Moscow-funded news website.

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The AfD's ranks in the new Bundestag will also be joined by 30-year-old Dario Seifert , who won a seat in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a region previously represented by Angela Merkel. The politician has a history of revisionist views on Germany's past.

Another new MP who is also causing a lot of controversy, including within the party, is Matthias Helferich , who once described himself as "the friendly face of National Socialism". Now he says he hopes to sit on the parliamentary culture committee and "respond to the leftist culture war with a right-wing cultural policy".

In Germany's snap parliamentary elections, the Christian Democratic bloc CDU/CSU won with 28.6 percent of the vote. The AfD came in second with 20.8 percent. The SPD came in third with 16.4 percent .