German science is already feeling the impact of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s victory in the Sunday’s general election.

Merkel is abandoning her previous ‘grand coalition’ with the left-leaning Social Democratic Party and will instead form a government with the more right-of-centre Free Democratic Party.

Nature’s Quirin Schiermeier predicted on 23 September that a new coalition with the FDP could be on the cards, and noted it’s implications for German research:

[The Free Democrats] have a distinctly liberal approach in hot-button areas such as genetically modified crops and stem cells. … If the Free Democrats, led by Guido Westerwelle, succeed in becoming the new coalition partner, they may use their influence to reduce red tape and restrictions in ethically sensitive branches of science.

“The economic situation won’t allow excessive increases in science budgets,” says Ulrike Flach, the party’s spokeswoman for science and technology. “But we are set to increase the general freedom to research, and ease existing restrictions to stem-cell research and genetic engineering.”

Chancellor Merkel is a chemist by training, and her reign has been generally seen as pro-science.

Her re-election is already being credited with moving certain science-related markets. The expectation that the new government will back nuclear power and abandon plans to close many reactors sent utility company stocks up today. In contrast, solar power companies fell amid speculation that incentives for renewables could be cut.