THE TELEGRAPH: Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is facing a leadership challenge after angry voters punished her government for signing up to the Greek bail-out.
Her conservative-liberal coalition was trounced in key regional elections on Sunday amid rising anger over the deal that will cost her country £19 billion.
The result stripped her government of its majority in the country's Bundesrat, or senate, and her ability to pass reforms cutting public spending.
Senior figures within her Christian Democrat Party (CDU) said they had lost confidence in her ability to guide the country and called for her to go.
Germany's Der Spiegel magazine said that up to 10 regional Christian Democrat leaders had begun plotting to remove her after her Greece policy "failed its first democratic test". >>> Bruno Waterfield and Allan Hall in Berlin | Monday, May 10, 2010
