BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday the poor showing of her Christian Democrats (CDU) in a regional poll on Sunday had not weakened her conservative bloc's position ahead of three-way federal coalition talks due to start later this week.
"We Christian Democrats and conservatives are going into these exploratory talks knowing that we're the strongest force amongst those involved and that we want to negotiate fairly with everyone but I don't see the Lower Saxony election result as weakening us in this task," Merkel said during a news conference in Berlin.