Friedrich Merz, Germany’s likely new chancellor, will give ‘absolute priority’ to strengthening European independence in defence and security in view of the changed policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a TV debate Merz made clear his aim to forge understanding with France and the UK on European defence arrangements after the 23 February general election that gave him a clear victory as leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union.
Merz will get down to difficult talks this week on building a new partnership between the CDU and its Bavarian Christian Social Union sister party with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Merz and would-be coalition partners will be galvanised by prospects that overlong coalition negotiations will make Germany appear ungovernable amid the gravest test in 80 years for its economic model and geopolitical position. Merz said: ‘Everyone is looking at Germany to see how quickly we can form a cohesive government after this complicated election.’
One likely outcome of the election will be increased German government borrowing in coming years to fund higher defence spending and make good on Merz’s probable European and economic commitments.
Political compromises are expected on relaxing Germany’s constitutionally enshrined ‘debt brake’ in combination with other technical measures, including a harmonised easing of some European borrowing rules.
Scholz and Merz in European and international meetings
Defeated Scholz said on the evening of 23 February he would involve Merz in European and international meetings discussing US-Russian plans for a peace deal in Ukraine that appear likely to take place without direct involvement by European governments.
Merz said he hoped to forge a government by Easter – 20 April. Negotiations will be made more complex by deep differences between the CDU/CSU and SPD on immigration, taxes, debt and measures to boost the stagnating economy.
Scholz led the problem-strewn three-party Berlin coalition that collapsed in November, forcing an early election more than six months before the scheduled date in autumn. Scholz said he will not be part of negotiations to forge a new government after the SPD slumped to its lowest share of the vote since an Imperial German election in 1887. Scholz will be widely regarded as the least successful of the Federal Republic’s nine post-second world war chancellors.
The SPD’s 16% score on 23 February, according to projections from the ARD public TV network, marked the first time the party has fallen below 20% in a country-wide poll since the last free election in the Weimar Republic in March 1933.
Poll shows intense political fragmentation
Sunday’s result confirmed intense political fragmentation. The liberal Free Democratic Party, earlier seen as a natural CDU/CSU coalition partner, seems likely to have failed to pass the 5% threshold needed for parliamentary representation – only the second such failure in 21 general elections since 1949. Depending on the exact outcome, Merz may still need to involve the Greens – which came fourth in the election – as well as the SPD in forthcoming coalition talks.
The CDU/CSU scored 29%, up from 24.1% in 2021 – only the third time in 10 elections since unification in 1990 that the CDU/CSU has increased its share of the vote. But this was still the second-lowest CDU/CSU score since the Federal Republic’s first election in 1949.
On 23 February, the far-Right anti-euro, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieved 20% of the vote, twice its score in the last general election in 2021 – profoundly complicating Merz’s task of forming a stable and cohesive government. Merz forcefully ruled out any coalition conversations with the AfD, labelling it a pro-Russian party. Any form of co-operation would betray the CDU’s 75-year legacy, Merz said.
The SPD has been becalmed under the lacklustre chancellorship of Scholz, who was forced to dissolve his coalition in November after sacking Christian Lindner, the FDP leader and then finance minister. The SPD fell nine percentage points compared with 2021 when Scholz won an against-the-odds victory following a series of pre-election gaffes by an accident-prone CDU/CSU.
The CDU/CSU score was seven percentage points below its post-unification average. By contrast, the SPD voting share was 14 points below the post-1990 average.
Eclipse of established political parties across Europe
The three once-dominant groupings – CDU/CSU, SPD and FDP, which during the two decades before unification scored an average of 99% of the popular vote – fell to a combined record low of just under 50% on 23 February.
This mirrors the eclipse of established political parties across Europe, reflecting widespread anxiety about inflation, slumping economic fortunes and rising immigration pressure. Since 2022, far-Right parties have finished first or second in elections in five of the original six members of the European Community – Germany France, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium – as well as in closely associated Austria, Czechia and Hungary.
The result is a remarkable comeback for Merz, who was removed from power in the CDU in the early 2000s by his rival Angela Merkel and built up a career in business before returning to politics in 2018. At 69 he will be the oldest German chancellor since Konrad Adenauer who was 73 when he took over as West Germany’s first post-second world war leader in 1949.
Merz’s long-standing antipathy to Merkel, who led Germany for 16 years up to 2021 and got on famously badly with Trump during his first term, will stand him in good stead in all-important dealings with the White House. So will his long experience in dealing with the American political and business community.
Coalition-building will be helped if, as expected, Boris Pistorius, Scholz’s popular defence minister, takes a leading position for the SPD in coalition negotiations. He is a likely deputy chancellor in a Merz government. In what seemed veiled criticism of Scholz, Pistorius labelled the election result as ‘devastating’ and a ‘catastrophe’ for the SPD.
David Marsh is Chairman of OMFIF. Andreas Meyer-Schwickerath is a Berlin-based OMFIF adviser.
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