Since Tuesday’s European Council, at which Angela Merkel pointedly played down Jean-Claude Juncker’s prospects of becoming the next European Commission President, she has come under a phenomenal amount of pressure domestically from a wide ranging coalition spanning senior members of her own party, her coalition partner the SPD, the opposition Green party, Germany’s most popular tabloid Bild Zeitung and Jürgen Habermas.

This pressure was most likely responsible for her change of tone earlier this afternoon when she said that:

“I am conducting all the discussions in the spirit that Jean-Claude Juncker should be the President of the European Commission.”

Even if this is not tantamount to saying “Juncker will be the next Commission President”, it is still a clear departure from her position on Tuesday when she said that:

“The agenda [of the next European Commission] can be handled by [Juncker], but also by many others…At the end, there will be a fairly broad tableau of names on the table.”

The SPD has been quick to respond, with the party’s General Secretary Yasmin Fahimi claiming that:

“It is good that the public pressure on Merkel forced her to correct her stance. Anything else would have been cheating the voters.”