Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would prefer a new election to ruling with a minority after talks on forming a three-way coalition failed overnight, but Germany’s president told parties they owed it to voters to try to form a government. The major obstacle to a three-way deal was...

 The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party called on Thursday for the repatriation of half a million Syrian refugees living in Germany, saying the war there was nearly over and that President Bashar al-Assad had urged refugees to return home. Earlier on Thursday, Syria’s...

Germany has lost track of 30,000 rejected asylum seekers, Bild daily reported on Thursday, piling pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree a migrant policy with potential coalition partners that ensures no repeat of a migration crisis in 2015. The paper said migrants were on a December...

A Madrid judge has ordered that eight former Catalan ministers be remanded in custody on Thursday over last week's vote for independence in the Catalan parliament.  One of the ex-ministers was granted bail. Of the 14 former members of the cabinet facing charges of...