Friedrich Merz is currently waiting in the wings, as it were, at the German chancellery. Ever since his party, the Christian Democrats, emerged victorious from February's election, media and fellow politicians have regarded him as a sort of pre-chancellor. But he still doesn't know for certain whether he will actually be elected to that office.
As things stand, the Bundestag will decide on May 6. Prior to this, all parties in his proposed government had to agree to the coalition agreement laid out in early April. With that hurdle cleared last week, on Monday, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU) formally signed the agreement.
Should he move to the chancellery, it would be a big step in what's been an unconventional political career — as well as a leap into the unknown. Merz, who is 69, heads the conservative Christian Democratic Union, but has never previously held a top governmental office with significant leadership responsibilities. He has never been a federal minister, or a state premier, or even mayor of a small town. If elected, he will be the oldest chancellor to take office since Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war German head of government (1949–1963).
The previous weeks were also the first time he had ever taken part in negotiations aimed at forming a government coalition. The media, as well as some unnamed representatives from the negotiation teams, have at times held this against him. The SPD leaders, Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken, and the head of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), Markus Söder, all have experience in this particular kind of wrangling. But as the would-be head of government, Merz hopes to lead a coalition between the CDU and these parties, and mediate between their interests.
'Trans-atlanticist and friend of Europe'
According to the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Merz is a "trans-atlanticist, friend of Europe, and reformer." This, it wrote, could mean he was "exactly the right person for the current times."
From 1989 to 1994, Merz was a member of the European Parliament. This was followed by 15 years in the Bundestag, between 1994 and 2009, during which he rose to become head of the CDU's parliamentary group, only to lose out to Angela Merkel in a struggle for the party leadership. Over these years, he took a particular interest in Germany's relationship with the United States.
A commercial lawyer, Merz hails from Sauerland, an area of North Rhine-Westphalia, east of the Ruhr, where he still lives. It's predominantly a middle-class, rural region, popular with tourists, that tends to espouse conservative, Catholic values.
Merz was clearly more traditionally conservative than his East German rival, the quantum chemist Angela Merkel. Early in his career, he was a close confidant of the now-deceased veteran CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble, who was a member of the German parliament for more than 50 years.
Merz chose not to stand for parliament again in 2009, and went on to pursue a career in business. From 2016 to 2020, he was chairman of the supervisory board of the German arm of BlackRock, currently the world's largest asset management company, and during this time he was often in the United States on business.
Merz hints at Taurus missile delivery
It wasn't until 2021 that Merz ran again for the Bundestag, and was elected. Now, as CDU leader, he is the most likely candidate to become the next chancellor, and has been fleshing out his plans for government. In doing so, he is sometimes more outspoken than Olaf Scholz, who is currently still the acting chancellor.
Merz frequently makes a point of mentioning that, for several months now, he has been in regular contact with European heads of government: dinner with France's President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, bilateral talks in Berlin or Brussels. He also intends to travel to the US before the summer recess to meet Republican President Donald Trump.
In a particularly striking example, Merz gave an hour-long TV interview to the German political talk show Caren Miosga eight days before the Easter weekend, in which he spoke about continuing military aid to Ukraine, going significantly beyond the "red line" repeatedly drawn by Chancellor Scholz.
A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy had killed dozens of civilians and injured more than one hundred just hours before the broadcast.
Merz described it as a "serious war crime," and raised the prospect of Germany delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv. These long-range, high-impact weapons would be of great assistance to Ukraine, and could seriously pressure Russia. But, "I've always said I would only do this in coordination with our European partners," Merz said.
He added, however, that the UK, France, and US had already been supplying cruise missiles, and if the weapons supply was coordinated with its allies, "Germany should also participate." He commented that the Ukrainian army "has to get out of the defensive position, all it does is react.” It needed to "be able to exert some control over what's happening."
Merz even explicitly mentioned the possibility of Ukraine destroying the Crimean Bridge, a key strategic link between Russia and the unilaterally annexed Crimean peninsula. With this rhetoric and level of detail, Merz has positioned himself in direct opposition to Scholz, who consistently opposed Taurus deliveries and warned against any further escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Post-election upheaval
Continued support for Ukraine is only one element of the broader political upheaval in Germany that has resulted from the policies of the new US administration — an upheaval that at times has caused Merz's standing and credibility to plummet.
For months, both in the Bundestag and on the campaign trail, Merz and other conservative politicians emphasized the importance of adhering to Germany's debt brake, and called for fiscal discipline. This abruptly changed with the start of the exploratory talks between the CDU/CSU and the SPD. By mid-March, both of Germany's legislative chambers had approved a historically unprecedented decision: From now on, there will be no cap on defense spending.
A package worth €500 billion ($570 billion) is also being introduced, aimed at improving Germany's crumbling infrastructure. This entails easing the debt brake to which, during the election campaign, the CDU and CSU had initially promised to adhere.
"We have great tasks ahead of us," Merz said in his TV interview, "and they demand appropriate answers." He added that he doesn't "look at poll numbers every day." The CDU leader declared that he wanted Germany to become "bolder and more optimistic" again.
Meanwhile, Merz, and all the mainstream parties, have the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) pressuring them from behind. Observers say the AfD's gains in the most recent election have prompted the future coalition partners to include stricter immigration policies and a greater focus on internal security in the coalition agreement.
Just days before the federal election, Merz sparked controversy and confusion, both at home and abroad, by effectively weakening the "firewall" that he, along with all the other mainstream parties, had pledged to maintain against the AfD. Merz accepted the AfD's backing in several parliamentary votes on migration policy, in a bid to help the CDU/CSU and pro-business Free Deomcratic Party (FDP) defeat the remaining red-green votes, which by then no longer held a majority. This move triggered a wave of outrage among politicians and in German civil society.
Now, Merz says he wants to boost the confidence of the German people. "We are a great country of more than 80 million people, who live and work here and take care of their families," he said. He wants to show "that the effort is worth it."
On May 6, the Bundestag will decide whether or not Merz actually will become Germany's next chancellor. He would only require a simple majority, known in this case as the "chancellor's majority." While all signs are pointing to him being confirmed in an office he has shadowed in the past months, even if he fails to be elected after all, the vote will mark the high point of a most unusual political career.
As things stand, the Bundestag will decide on May 6. Prior to this, all parties in his proposed government had to agree to the coalition agreement laid out in early April. With that hurdle cleared last week, on Monday, the Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Democrats (CDU) formally signed the agreement.
Should he move to the chancellery, it would be a big step in what's been an unconventional political career — as well as a leap into the unknown. Merz, who is 69, heads the conservative Christian Democratic Union, but has never previously held a top governmental office with significant leadership responsibilities. He has never been a federal minister, or a state premier, or even mayor of a small town. If elected, he will be the oldest chancellor to take office since Konrad Adenauer, the first post-war German head of government (1949–1963).
The previous weeks were also the first time he had ever taken part in negotiations aimed at forming a government coalition. The media, as well as some unnamed representatives from the negotiation teams, have at times held this against him. The SPD leaders, Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken, and the head of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), Markus Söder, all have experience in this particular kind of wrangling. But as the would-be head of government, Merz hopes to lead a coalition between the CDU and these parties, and mediate between their interests.
'Trans-atlanticist and friend of Europe'
According to the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Merz is a "trans-atlanticist, friend of Europe, and reformer." This, it wrote, could mean he was "exactly the right person for the current times."
From 1989 to 1994, Merz was a member of the European Parliament. This was followed by 15 years in the Bundestag, between 1994 and 2009, during which he rose to become head of the CDU's parliamentary group, only to lose out to Angela Merkel in a struggle for the party leadership. Over these years, he took a particular interest in Germany's relationship with the United States.
A commercial lawyer, Merz hails from Sauerland, an area of North Rhine-Westphalia, east of the Ruhr, where he still lives. It's predominantly a middle-class, rural region, popular with tourists, that tends to espouse conservative, Catholic values.
Merz was clearly more traditionally conservative than his East German rival, the quantum chemist Angela Merkel. Early in his career, he was a close confidant of the now-deceased veteran CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble, who was a member of the German parliament for more than 50 years.
Merz chose not to stand for parliament again in 2009, and went on to pursue a career in business. From 2016 to 2020, he was chairman of the supervisory board of the German arm of BlackRock, currently the world's largest asset management company, and during this time he was often in the United States on business.
Merz hints at Taurus missile delivery
It wasn't until 2021 that Merz ran again for the Bundestag, and was elected. Now, as CDU leader, he is the most likely candidate to become the next chancellor, and has been fleshing out his plans for government. In doing so, he is sometimes more outspoken than Olaf Scholz, who is currently still the acting chancellor.
Merz frequently makes a point of mentioning that, for several months now, he has been in regular contact with European heads of government: dinner with France's President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace, bilateral talks in Berlin or Brussels. He also intends to travel to the US before the summer recess to meet Republican President Donald Trump.
In a particularly striking example, Merz gave an hour-long TV interview to the German political talk show Caren Miosga eight days before the Easter weekend, in which he spoke about continuing military aid to Ukraine, going significantly beyond the "red line" repeatedly drawn by Chancellor Scholz.
A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy had killed dozens of civilians and injured more than one hundred just hours before the broadcast.
Merz described it as a "serious war crime," and raised the prospect of Germany delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv. These long-range, high-impact weapons would be of great assistance to Ukraine, and could seriously pressure Russia. But, "I've always said I would only do this in coordination with our European partners," Merz said.
He added, however, that the UK, France, and US had already been supplying cruise missiles, and if the weapons supply was coordinated with its allies, "Germany should also participate." He commented that the Ukrainian army "has to get out of the defensive position, all it does is react.” It needed to "be able to exert some control over what's happening."
Merz even explicitly mentioned the possibility of Ukraine destroying the Crimean Bridge, a key strategic link between Russia and the unilaterally annexed Crimean peninsula. With this rhetoric and level of detail, Merz has positioned himself in direct opposition to Scholz, who consistently opposed Taurus deliveries and warned against any further escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Post-election upheaval
Continued support for Ukraine is only one element of the broader political upheaval in Germany that has resulted from the policies of the new US administration — an upheaval that at times has caused Merz's standing and credibility to plummet.
For months, both in the Bundestag and on the campaign trail, Merz and other conservative politicians emphasized the importance of adhering to Germany's debt brake, and called for fiscal discipline. This abruptly changed with the start of the exploratory talks between the CDU/CSU and the SPD. By mid-March, both of Germany's legislative chambers had approved a historically unprecedented decision: From now on, there will be no cap on defense spending.
A package worth €500 billion ($570 billion) is also being introduced, aimed at improving Germany's crumbling infrastructure. This entails easing the debt brake to which, during the election campaign, the CDU and CSU had initially promised to adhere.
"We have great tasks ahead of us," Merz said in his TV interview, "and they demand appropriate answers." He added that he doesn't "look at poll numbers every day." The CDU leader declared that he wanted Germany to become "bolder and more optimistic" again.
Meanwhile, Merz, and all the mainstream parties, have the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) pressuring them from behind. Observers say the AfD's gains in the most recent election have prompted the future coalition partners to include stricter immigration policies and a greater focus on internal security in the coalition agreement.
Just days before the federal election, Merz sparked controversy and confusion, both at home and abroad, by effectively weakening the "firewall" that he, along with all the other mainstream parties, had pledged to maintain against the AfD. Merz accepted the AfD's backing in several parliamentary votes on migration policy, in a bid to help the CDU/CSU and pro-business Free Deomcratic Party (FDP) defeat the remaining red-green votes, which by then no longer held a majority. This move triggered a wave of outrage among politicians and in German civil society.
Now, Merz says he wants to boost the confidence of the German people. "We are a great country of more than 80 million people, who live and work here and take care of their families," he said. He wants to show "that the effort is worth it."
On May 6, the Bundestag will decide whether or not Merz actually will become Germany's next chancellor. He would only require a simple majority, known in this case as the "chancellor's majority." While all signs are pointing to him being confirmed in an office he has shadowed in the past months, even if he fails to be elected after all, the vote will mark the high point of a most unusual political career.
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