Berlin – The Friedrich Merz party of Germany in late February. After weeks of coalition negotiations, Merz finally arrived at the chancellor’s office on Tuesday afternoon ,.
In the meantime, almost all Merz problems got worse.
Predictions for the stagnant German economy, which Merz promised to propel themselves under the weight of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade war. Relations with the Trump government continue to get worse.
The extreme right political party that, the alternative to Germany, or AFD, reached the same level as Merz’s center-right Christians in most research. If the national election had been held again on Sunday, AFD could have been first, even if German intelligence services have it.
On Tuesday, the biggest setback has occurred so far. Merz could not guarantee the votes needed to become a chancellor in the first vote in Parliament. Eighteen members of his governmental coalition refused to support him. It was an unprecedented fact in modern Germany and a blow to Merz, although he returned to win his position in a second vote in the afternoon.
Merz was already facing two major challenges as a chancellor. He must show Europe and the world that Germany is ready to take a leadership role that has not been seen since the height of former Chancellor Angela Merkel for over a decade. He also needs to convince the German audience, frustrated with the habitual and ineffective politics, that traditional parties can bring the necessary changes.
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Fault on Tuesday’s first vote probably made both tasks difficult. At home, the fall is a reminder that the Merz coalition does not have a overwhelming majority in Parliament and that its agenda can be diverted by some desertions on important legislative issues.
Merz hopes to harden Germany’s borders and make his migration policies more rigid to respond to voter anxiety about the millions of new arrivals in the country. He wants to reduce regulations and modernize bureaucracy in the hope of stimulating economic growth. Germany’s economy shrunk last year and has not grown adjusted by inflation for half a decade.
The new chancellor should also pass legislation to spend newly depressed money for the military, for infrastructure improvements and climate change combat initiatives. The initiatives were all approved in the agreement he made with center-left parties in a parliament ‘”duckword” session after the election, but still need to be transformed into law.
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However, Merz’s allies now have increasing doubts about their ability to count votes to approve bills. He got support for the debt agreement in March. But in January, he tried to approve a pre-election immigration bill with part with AFD votes, breaking a German political taboo-and lost.
Foreign leaders may wonder how much of your Merz agenda will be able to implement and perhaps how long your government will last. Spending legislation is particularly important for European partners, who expect Germany to lead the way while the continent takes on more responsibility for its own defense in the face of Trump’s threats to remove American support. Merz was about to spend his first full day in office on Wednesday, traveling to Paris and Warsaw in Poland.
In Paris, Merz and the French president Emmanuel Macron held a press conference in which they reaffirmed their commitments to defense and security in Europe.
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Trump can now see Merz as weakened by complicating the new chancellor’s efforts to criticize Washington’s defense and economic policies while cultivating a personal relationship with the US president.
Concerns about these repercussions seem to have revived the members of the Merz coalition, including the center-left social democrats, who re-align themselves on Tuesday afternoon. He won 15 votes in the morning vote.
Some legislators have suggested in particular that the initial desertions were destined for personal protests-Merz has antagonized members of his coalition with political choices since the election-but never intended to really stop him from winning. Perhaps, they suggested, shame ensures more unity in the future.
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However, events also encouraged AFD. In opposition, his work is easier than Merz’s: exploring dysfunction, blaming the current government and presenting its populist agenda as the only option for change in a country tired of the status quo.
“This government begins at extreme instability,” said Bernd Baumann, an AFD representative in a speech just before the second parliamentary vote on Tuesday. “And it will remain unstable. This is the opposite of what Germany needs.”
Merz knows that solving problems like the economy is his best hope to keep AFD at a distance. Research shows that he is personally unpopular among voters, who, as in many democracies around the world, are disenchanted with their longtime political elites.
If Merz needed additional evidence of this, he could have read them on Tuesday morning in the newspaper Berliner Morgenposthours before the first vote, already convicted. “Friedrich Merz’s big day,” said the main headline, “but no euphoria in Germany.”
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