The News
Germany’s next chancellor is set to be Freidrich Merz, after his Christian Democratic Union party won national elections Sunday.
Because no party secured a majority, Merz first has to form a coalition government that will almost certainly be made up of centrist parties as the German political mainstream strives to sideline the ascendant far right. It’s unclear how long that deal-making will take, but Merz also faces the twin challenges of breaking the country’s economic malaise and revising the relationship between Berlin — and Europe more broadly — with the US.
After the election results came in, Merz called for European powers to bolster defense “as quickly as possible,” adding that doing so would enable “real independence from the US,” which has become “largely indifferent” to the fate of the continent.
SIGNALS
Merz faces uphill battle to make the changes Germany urgently requires
Merz comes to power at a moment when the German economy is facing a recession, a crisis that requires the conservative leader to push against “’business as usual,’” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote. Top of mind is Germany’s strict rules around borrowing: The country needs cash to fund infrastructure and other investments to resuscitate its economy, but any attempt to change the rules could face a “blocking minority” made up of the populist far right and the hard left, the Financial Times reported. At the same time, Germany’s business confidence remains in the doldrums, with firms frustrated by the apparent lack of urgency: A group of German executives called for coalition talks to begin as fast as possible: “The rest of the world is not waiting for us,” one CEO said.
Merz’s attitude toward US marks a ‘historic watershed’
Friedrich Merz’s remarks Sunday calling on Europe to pursue a “step-by-step” independence from the US indicated that Germany’s new leader sees the continent’s 80-year alliance with Washington as effectively over, Politico noted. The “comments mark a historic watershed: They reveal how deeply Trump has shaken the political foundations of Europe, which has depended on American security guarantees since 1945,” the outlet wrote. As the European Union’s largest economy, Germany has long played an outsize role in maintaining the bloc’s foundations. In undermining Berlin, a New York Times columnist argued, the Trump administration’s moves “augur a coming dark age,” the effects of which could extend far beyond the continent.