BERLIN – Conservative chief Friedrich Merz is heading in the right direction to develop into post-World Struggle II Germany’s tenth chancellor after finalizing a deal Wednesday to form a new government.
Merz, 69, who will succeed outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has vowed to prioritize European unity and the continent’s safety because it grapples with the new Trump administration and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Merz’s two-party Union bloc emerged because the strongest pressure from Germany’s election on Feb. 23. He then turned to the Social Democrats, Scholz’s center-left occasion, to place collectively a coalition with a parliamentary majority. He has already pushed by way of plans to enable higher defense spending, and confronted extra strain to complete the deal after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs created important market disruption.
As chancellor, Merz will face the problem of serving to to fill a management vacuum and craft a united response to latest U.S. coverage shifts which have strained the transatlantic alliance.
The highest job has been late in coming for Merz, a educated lawyer who noticed his ascent derailed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel within the early 2000s and even turned his again on energetic politics for a number of years. Regardless of his political expertise, he’s heading to the chancellery with out beforehand having served in authorities.
The rivalry with Merkel
Merkel has described Merz as an excellent speaker and complimented his want for management, although she acknowledged this was an issue of their relationship.
“We’re virtually the identical age … We grew up utterly in another way, which was extra of a possibility than an impediment,” she wrote in her memoir “Freedom.”
“However there was one downside, proper from the beginning: We each wished to be the boss,” she mentioned.
Merkel moved to consolidate her grip on Germany’s center-right after the Union narrowly misplaced a nationwide election in 2002. She pushed Merz apart as chief of its parliamentary group, taking the job herself along with the management of the Christian Democratic Union occasion she already held. She went on to steer Germany from 2005 to 2021.
A break from politics
Merz turned his again on energetic politics for a number of years after leaving the parliament in 2009.
He practiced legislation and headed the supervisory board of funding supervisor BlackRock’s German department. Throughout that break, he typically travelled for enterprise to america and China, although he by no means lived exterior Germany.
Volker Resing, who wrote the latest biography “Friedrich Merz: His Path to Energy,” says that Merz might be “essentially the most worldwide chancellor” Germany has had since 1945.
Political comeback
Merz launched his political comeback after Merkel stepped down as CDU chief in 2018 and introduced that she would not search a fifth time period of chancellor. Nevertheless, he was narrowly defeated by centrist candidates in occasion management votes in 2018 and early 2021.
However he continued and was lastly elected occasion chief within the third try, after the center-right’s defeat by present Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany’s 2021 election. Merz cemented his energy by additionally turning into the chief of the Union’s parliamentary group.
In accordance with Resing, Merz doesn’t imagine in avoiding confrontation in any respect prices, however believes that “a certain quantity of provocation can set off an actual debate and maybe an actual growth in movement.”
Through the election marketing campaign, Merz vowed to make Germany’s ailing economy strong again and curb irregular migration.
With President Donald Trump again within the White Home and tensions rising over the way to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, Merz, who has lengthy supported a robust transatlantic relationship, mentioned after his victory that his prime precedence is to unify Europe within the face of challenges coming from america and Russia.
Flirting with the far proper?
Merz put toughening Germany’s immigration legal guidelines on the forefront of the election marketing campaign after a migrant killed two people in a knife attack within the Bavarian metropolis of Aschaffenburg final month.
He introduced a nonbinding movement earlier than the parliament, calling for a lot of extra migrants to be turned again at Germany’s borders. The movement was narrowly approved thanks to votes from the far-right Various for Germany, or AfD, occasion.
That prompted his opponents to accuse Merz of breaking a taboo in allegedly working with the AfD, and a public rebuke from Merkel. Critics pointed to the episode as an illustration of what they are saying is Merz’s tendency to impulsiveness.
Lots of of 1000’s of Germans took to the streets to protest towards each Merz’ movement and likewise the rise of the far proper.
Merz has insisted he did nothing flawed and by no means labored with AfD, and likewise repeatedly vowed to “never” work with the party if he turns into chancellor.
Roots in rural Germany
Merz represents his rural area in Germany’s parliament — an space the place individuals are “slightly down-to-earth, maybe a bit reserved,” Resing mentioned. “That’s what formed him: rural life.”
As a politician, Merz has all the time championed conservative values and confused the significance of household.
He met his spouse Charlotte, who’s now a choose, whereas he was finding out legislation, and so they have three grown youngsters.
Merz joined the CDU in 1972 and was elected to the European Parliament in 1989. He first joined the German parliament in 1994.
Within the pilot’s seat
A pilot overtly enthusiastic about his pastime, Merz generally would fly his personal small aircraft from his residence within the Sauerland area in western Germany to Berlin on Monday mornings.
He has caught to flying, regardless of the lengthy hours imposed by his job as opposition chief and occasional criticism that he’s indulging in a wealthy man’s pastime.
“Once you discuss to him about flying, his eyes mild up,” Resing mentioned. “He says that once you’re above the clouds, that’s freedom.”
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