"We have decided - the CDU-CSU faction in the Bundestag - that there would be no more expansion at all, " he told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

BBC: Antonis Samaras

It is wonderful to be here, and I just want to say thank you for our hosts at KSU for -- or CSU, rather, excuse me -- for their hospitality.

WHITEHOUSE: Winning the Future Forum on Small Business: Opening Session | The White House

The CDU-CSU alliance opposed the full tax cut on the grounds that Germany could not afford it.

ECONOMIST: A teaspoonful of tax cuts | The

Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, from Mrs Merkel's conservative CDU-CSU alliance, criticised the pledges, saying they were short of detail.

BBC: Merkel challenger promises jobs

Mr Guttenberg, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party of Mrs Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) - was also stripped of his PhD by the University of Bayreuth last year after evidence of his plagiarism emerged.

BBC: German minister Annette Schavan denies plagiarism

But "we believe that the Atlantic basin is still in an active hurricane cycle, " William Gray, who co-heads the CSU team, said in December.

CNN: NOAA predicts above-normal '08 hurricane season

The proportion of high-school graduates progressing to UC or CSU has fallen from 22% to 18% in the past five years, according to Hans Johnson at the Public Policy Institute of California.

ECONOMIST: As public universities struggle, some private ones thrive

The CSU leader in Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, is not keen on the flat-rate health premium.

ECONOMIST: The battle of the chancellorship | The

The 18 September elections left neither the centre-left SPD nor the conservative CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, with a majority in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Merkel defends German reform plan