(Reuters) – Germany faces months of tough negotiations to form a coalition government after the federal election on Sunday, with three parties needing to team up to clear the threshold of 50% of all seats in the Bundestag after the vote.

Below is a list of possible coalitions as well as some compromises required to achieve agreement.

“TRAFFIC-LIGHT” (SPD, Greens, FDP)

After Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats came first, they said they would seek to form a coalition with the Greens and the FDP.

While the SPD and Greens were together in power from 1998 to 2005, under Gerhard Schroeder as Chancellor, they are broadly aligned on issues such as environment and raising taxes. However, the Greens tend to be more aggressive on Russia policy.

To regain the chancellery, the SPD will need the support of the Liberal Free Democrats to create a “traffic lights” coalition. This is due to their party colours, red, green, and yellow.

Christian Lindner of the FDP has expressed interest in the possibility. According to him, legalising cannabis would be the one thing his party could agree upon with both the SPD and Greens.

The liberals tend to be more conservative than the Greens and SPD on economics but they may compromise if they are able to take control of the Finance Ministry.

JAMAICA (CDU/CSU, Greens, FDP)

Despite coming second, Christian Democrat candidate Armin Laschet said he could still try to form a government with the FDP and the Greens.

For much of the postwar period, Germany was governed by “Christian Liberal” governments. The two parties are close allies in terms of economic policy.

The two parties don’t have enough seats together to be able to rule alone. They could form a Jamaican coalition with Greens, whose colours are black, yellow, and green.

It won’t be an easy alliance. Christian Lindner (liberal leader) pulled out of negotiations to form a Jamaica coalition.

The Greens and FDP differ on environmental policy, but both conservatives as well as liberals tend to be more cautious about defense spending.

GRAND COALITION (CDU, SPD or CDU, SPD and Greens)

The SPD has been a reluctant junior partner to Merkel’s conservatives for 12 of the past 16 years. Both sides have stated that they will not work together again but did the same during the 2017 election. They ended up agreeing to cooperate when the other options were unsuccessful.

“RED-RED-GREEN” (SPD, Linke, Greens)

Before the election, the conservatives raised the spectre of a “red-red-green” coalition between the SPD, Greens and the hard-left Linke party, heirs to the Communist Party that ruled East Germany. The three parties failed to win enough votes to form a coalition.

Although the Linke was below the threshold of 5% to be admitted to parliament, it still won three constituencies. It will therefore get 4.9%, although this is insufficient to form a left-wing alliance.