What Angela Merkel’s shift on gay marriage reveals about her style

IT WAS a relaxed event at a Berlin theatre on June 26th. Angela Merkel was taking questions from the readers of Brigitte, a lifestyle magazine. A young man asked her: “When can I get to call my boyfriend my husband?” The chancellor, who had previously described marriage as the union of a man and a woman, gave a typically cryptic answer. She noted the “difficulties” that “some” have with same-sex marriage and described being affected by a meeting with a lesbian couple in her constituency. Then came the crucial phrase. Her Christian Democrat (CDU) party, ventured Mrs Merkel tentatively, should shift “somewhat in the direction of a question of conscience”.

Then things moved fast. The next day her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners picked up on the comment, broke with the CDU and called a parliamentary vote on gay marriage with the socialist Left party and the Greens. The day after, the chancellor gave it her blessing. As The Economist went to press the vote was due on June 30th, and was expected to pass with the backing of the three left-of-centre parties and a handful of CDU MPs. If such a result clears the upper house (probable) and survives any challenges in the constitutional court (also probable), Germany will later this year join most of western Europe in letting same-sex couples tie the knot like mixed-sex ones.