Friedrich Merz will be the next chancellor of Germany. And he still can’t tell what his government program will be. His conservative alliance received around 29% of the vote in Sunday’s snap general election, but long months lie ahead before he can build the coalition he needs with one or two other parties. The European Union’s powerhouse will remain without a proper government in a heated geopolitical context, just as its economy is entering its third year of crisis.
Based on Sunday night’s exit polls, Merz has little chance to form a government without the social democrats of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD. The question is whether he will need to bring a third party into his future government, which would complicate the negotiations. Two players are hovering around the threshold of 5% of national vote that would allow them into Parliament - the liberals from the FDP and the leftist BSW. If they make it, a majority of seats will be harder to achieve and Merz will have to invite either the Greens - who secured 12% of the vote - or the FDP.
With the SPD as his junior partner, Merz would have to compromise on his tax cuts pledges. He has proposed to slash levies on businesses from an overall 30% to 25%, and lower the burden for households. The SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, have vowed to increase taxes on higher incomes. Were it to be part of the coalition, the FDP might insist on lower taxes – as it did when it governed with Scholz. The party might also oppose any attempt to reform Germany’s infamous debt brake, which sets strict limits on government borrowing.
The coalition talks will be complicated by the rise of insurgent parties on both sides of the political spectrum. The right-wing anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), with around 20% of the vote, didn’t do better than expected in recent polls. But the strong performance of Die Linke (The Left), with 9% of the vote, also helped underline the disillusion of German voters towards their mainstream parties.
Merz has long pushed for continued support for Ukraine, and he has held hawkish views on the need for Europeans to increase their defence budgets and unite to better face both Russia and the new challenge of a hostile American president. He would find the Greens an ally on both counts, even though he may need to pressure the SPD to agree on determined military aid to Kyiv.
The coalition talks that Merz will now lead may soon look like the electoral campaign redux. The sooner this ends, the better for Europe.
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CONTEXT NEWS
The CDU-CSU coalition led by chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz won Germany’s parliamentary election on February 23 with nearly 29% of the vote, according to exit polls released by German television network ZDF.
The populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second with nearly 20% of the vote, a post-war record for a far-right party. The mainstream Social Democratic Party (SPD) of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz attained 16.4% of the vote.
The Greens, part of Scholz’s governing coalition, were credited with a little over 12% of the vote, while the leftist party Die Linke (The Left) received nearly 9%.
It was not clear on Sunday night whether the liberals from the FDP and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) party had managed to receive the 5% of the national vote threshold that would give them a presence in parliament.
