German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a bitter defeat in a key regional election Sunday (13 May), in a result likely to make it more difficult for Berlin to continue to push austerity-only measures at the EU level.
Preliminary results for the parliamentary election in North Rhine Westphalia - the country's most populous state - showed that the centre-right CDU received 26.3 percent of the votes, roundly beaten by the Social Democrats who scooped 39....
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