State poll marks test of ‘Schulz effect’ in German election year

Berlin (dpa) – Voters in the south-western German state of Saarland were casting their ballots on Sunday in a poll seen as the first test of the newly-resurgent Social Democrats (SPD) against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). The SPD – currently the junior partner in a coalition led by the CDU in the sparsely populated…