Leader of the German opposition Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) Friedrich Merz on Wednesday in the Bundestag he stated that he is willing to help the minority government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz to strengthen the constitutional court. At the same time, he announced that he will not support anything else from the government’s legislative agenda until the December vote of confidencewrites TASR according to Reuters.
As the reason, Merz stated that Scholz cannot be trusted to fulfill any promises, which he will give before this vote, which is scheduled for December 16. Merz hopes that he could become the next chancellor. The opposition bloc of the CDU and its sister CSU, led by him, is significantly leading in pre-election polls, which attribute up to 32 percent voter support to him, writes the DPA agency.
He spoke in the lower house of the German parliament after a speech by Scholz, whose three-party governing coalition collapsed last week. This came after the chancellor fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, whose Free Democratic Party (FDP) party subsequently withdrew from the coalition.
Merz told the chancellor that his bloc would not now act as “substitutes” for the FDP. He called Scholz’s political maneuvers “unacceptable” and the chancellor himself as weak.
He said the new government will have to do everything to restore Germany’s economic competitiveness. At the same time, according to his words, he must regain control of migration by not letting people across borders. However, Merz made it a point to distance himself from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in this regard, with which he ruled out any post-election cooperation. It is precisely the anti-immigration AfD that is helping to rise and currently in second place in pre-election polls, thanks to Germany’s economic problems and increased migration to this country.
“Germany needs a fundamentally different policy, especially when it comes to migration, foreign security and also European and economic policy,” Merz said. He also criticized the Scholz government’s one-sided focus on “wind and solar energy, e-mobility and heat pumps”. Instead, he appealed to “an energy and transport policy that is truly open to technology”.
Scholz’s minority cabinet will probably fail in the December vote of confidence, and the president will be able to dissolve the Bundestag and call new elections within 21 days. They should be held on February 23, as agreed upon by the SPD, the Greens and the opposition CDU/CSU Christian Democrats.
