Friedrich Merz69 years and leader of the Cristianodemocrata Union (CDU) After the withdrawal of Angela Merkelwill reach on Tuesday the position that has been longing for more than 20 years: the German Foreign Ministry. It will be The tenth chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany (RFA) and the sixth of the conservative block, which integrate their party and the Bavaria Social Cristian Union (CSU). But he will also be the first head of a German federal government who dealt with the loss of trust Regarding the great ally until now unconditional, USA. The Donald Trump’s hostility to Europe He has opened one crack on the transatlantic axis That recently seemed unthinkable. Much less can you count on Russia. The war of aggression against Ukraine He annihilated the ‘Appaesement’ line, or appeasement, which Merkel practiced. It is expected of Merz that recompose the Franco-German axisbattered for the lack of chemistry between Emmanuel Macron y Olaf Scholzthe cold social democratic chancellor that will transfer power. A revitalization of relations with the United Kingdomdespite the barriers left Brexit.
Merz will assume the position of two days of the 80th anniversary of the capitulation of the third Reich, with a Germany immersed in that knot of complex or broken relations, in the case of Moscow, with the four allied powers that defeated Nazism. The ultra -rightist adverse panorama completes Alternative for Germany (AFD)turned into a second force nationwide, which has cast the illusion that the country of the holocaust had properly shielded against the neonazismo.
Nothing is leaving as Merz probably imagined when in December 2021, after several tantes, he finally took the reins of the CDU. The Social Democrat Scholz had won the elections a few months before, promoted by his Merkel continuator profile, despite being from rival political families. Merkel’s political retirement allowed Merz to return to La Vanguardia after 12 years away from the structures of the party and as a representative of the most right -wing wing and less ‘Merkeliana’.
Merkel’s corner
Neither Merz nor Merkel have ever tried to hide their differences. The CDU/CSU won the elections on February 23 promising Close borders to irregular immigration and recognizing as “error” the reception of refugees Merkel defended during the great migration crisis of 2015. Merz wants to reverse what qualifies as an uncontrolled immigrants and, on his way to power, broke a taboo by allowing himself to be supported by AFD in a parliamentary motion to harde the immigration policy. Merkel, who does not usually influence daily politics, criticized that complicit vote without tap.
Paradoxically, Merz will now direct a coalition with the Social Democrats, the constellation with which Merkel ruled in three of his four legislatures. There is no other possible alliance than the parliamentary majority without breaking the Sanitary Cord On the ultra -right.
Merz arrives at the Foreign Ministry Without government experience Not even at the regional scale, what in Germany is unusual, and without awarding skills for consensus, Merkel’s identity seal. It is proposed to activate the rearma and especially the economy, after two years in recession and with 2025 pointing to stagnation. You will have to seek consensus between your liberal ideology, the defense of privatizations or cuts and the counterweight represented by its Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, the President of the Social Democrats, Lars Klingbil.
Conservative Pedigrí
The dividing line between his rightism and Merkel’s centrism is clear. But nobody questions Merz his roots in the CDU, a party to which Merkel did decades before. Born in 1955 in Brilon, in the populous ‘Land’ of North-Westphaly Rhineentered the youth of the CDU in 1972. He began to emerge as a brilliant rejuvenator of the foreign minister’s line Helmut Kohl And he became an Eurodiputa in 1989. Merz passed to the Eurocamara in 1994 to the Federal Parliament. But after exploding the scandal of the secret accounts of the ‘Kohl era’ there was the first clash with Merkel, who had entered a few years earlier as a young promise from the east of the country and had already reached the head of the party after calling to “emancipate” of the patriarch.
The pulse between them had two peaks: first, in 2002, when a conspiracy between several barons of the party and other males alpha forced Merkel to give up being the candidate of the block in the general elections. The designation fell to the Bavaro Edmund Stiber, who lost to Gerhard Schröder. Merkel then claimed the position of leader of the parliamentary opposition, which Merz fit reluctantly. A few years later, with Merkel already at the Foreign Ministry at the head of his first major coalition with the Social Democrats, Merz retired as a deputy to move on to the public company.
How to become a millionaire
To this stage must Merz the other essential feature of his biography: that of millionaire and proud owner of the private jet That likes to pilot. Its passage through successive Board of Directors includes the position of President in Germany Blackrock Investment Fund. This makes many of his compatriots identify him with the Neoliberal voracity. Others consider such knowledge to give an advantage to relaunch the economy or to seek affinities with Trump, with whom he shares the Golf fondness.
Next Tuesday, when he assumes his position, he will have Merkel’s guest tribune. Despite not having assisted any CDU congress since its withdrawal, the former corner seems willing to seek the reunion with its party.
The other woman who, privately, marks Merz’s biography is His wife, Charlotte. They have been married for 44 years, have three children and continue to show themselves as a well -joint marriage, including when they jump to the dance floor.
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