PARIS.- Friedrich Merz assumes his functions this Tuesday, May 6 in Berlin, at the head of a coalition government of center -right and center -left. The new German chancellor, who declares himself decidedly pro-Europe, will quickly have the opportunity to prove it. Although that will undoubtedly be his only challenge.
President of the Democratic-Christian Conservative party (CDU), Merz will be officially chosen by the Chamber of Deputies (Bundestag) tenth chancellor of the History of the Federal Republic, born of the release of May 8, 1945.
This vote is the fruit of parliamentarism in force in Germany for 75 years, at the same time source of pride and new restlessnessbefore the advance of the extreme right, turned into the main opposition force.
In direct line with the Merkel decade, yesterday’s adversaries, democratic-Christian and social-democrats, They allied for the fifth time in history to form a government coalition. Each of the parties presented its ministers separately, whose powers – with the exception of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confident of a conservative – do not move too far from tradition.
That stability ritualhighly respected in Germany, contrasts with the critical political and economic environment in which Merz, 69, assumes his functions.
“This time there is no euphoria. The confidence of public opinion before the State collapses,” the new chancellor acknowledged a week.
“In case of failure, the extreme right could win the 2029 elections And that would be the end of German parliamentary stability, ”added Merz.
The alternative radical right -wing party for Germany (AFD) currently has 152 deputies in the Bundestag and, especially in the field of illegal immigration, the traditional political class fails to stop its rise.
On the other hand, two weeks ago, the outgoing government of Olaf Scholz announced by 2025 a paralysis of the German economyparticularly vulnerable to customs rates imposed by Donald Trump.
“By inhabitant, Germany is poorer today than in 2017. Such evolution never occurred in the history of this country after the war,” says Stefan Legge, deputy director of the Saint Gallen Institute of Economics. After two years of recession, infrastructure suffers from the lack of public investments, thus aggravating the structural failures of the “Made in Germany.”
In any case, the new ministers have been appointed and the signed coalition contract. The doors of the German Foreign Ministry are open for Merz, who He has also put the priority in the economy and defense of his country.
It was in an old Berlin gasometer transformed into a High-Tech conference room where the three parties that make up the new government decided to sign the thick coalition contract. The document, of 146 meticulously negotiated pages will serve as a road map for the next four years. For Friedrich Merz, that site is emblematic of the main mission that his government has set: reinforce the economy through investments and reforms.
Sitting in the front row of the room, there were the ministers who will accompany him. Seven social-democrats (SPD), seven of their own party, Christian democracy (CDU) and three of its brother party, the CDU. The new chancellor has surrounded himself with faithful and experts. Among them, the new Minister of Economy, Katherina Reiche51 years.
That chemistry originally from Brandeburg, democratic-Christian and very conservative, opposed to equal marriage, had said goodbye to politics in 2015 after being deputy for about 20 years. Partisan of nuclear power plants in a country that decided to end them during the government of Angela Merkel, directed a subsidiary of the E.ON Energy Group in Dusseldorf.
To deal with the urgent mission of modernizing a very backward country in the numerical field, Merz chose Karsten Wildberger. Without political label, that training physicist and entrepreneur in telecommunication groups will be in charge of the new Ministry of Modernization of the State.
The social-democrat Alexander Dobrint54, future Interior Minister, must deal with the difficult issue of the reinforcement of border controls to limit illegal immigration, the other priority that Merz has set, and one of the issues that most mobilize to the Germans. That Bavarian, deputy for 23 years, had made a fleeting and questioned step by the Ministry of Transportation between 2013 and 2017. He is mostly reproached for not having invested what is necessary in the Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company.
Johann Wadephul62, he will be responsible for the Foreign Relations portfolio. Man of northern Germany, very close to the new chancellor, is the first time in 60 years that a Democrat-Christian occupies that position. Wadephul is a jurist, an expert in foreign policy and security issues within his party.
Merz, who has not ceased to repeat that “the voice of Germany will be heard again in Europe and in the world” has made foreign policy a personal issue. The new chancellor foresees the creation of a National Security Council in the Foreign Ministry, in charge of monitoring those issues. Wadephul, former soldier, defender of the transatlantic relationship, maintains good relations in NATO and was always in favor of the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine.
The social-democrats will have two outstanding personalities in the new government: Lars Klingbil47, head of the Parliamentary Group of the Party (SPD), becomes Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, one of the key positions of the coming years, traditionally occupied by the Liberal Party. Klingbeil was one of the main negotiators of the coalition contract, managing to impose the social-democratic seal despite the bad score of his party (16.4% of the votes) in the legislative of February 23. Son of a Bundeswehr soldier, a member of the right wing of the SPD, managed to become a short time the strong man of his party.
Everyone imagined it and so it happened: Boris Pistoriusthe very popular Minister of Defense of the Olaf Scholz team, retains that portfolio that occupies since 2023. In charge of modernizing the armed forces and much appreciated by the military, Pistorius does not cease to clarify in favor of an increase in the defense budget and the sending of weapons to Ukraine. The favorite political man of the Germans, it is said that, if he had been the social-democratic candidate to the Foreign Ministry instead of Olaf Scholz, the party had had a possibility of winning in the last legislative.
As for Europe, the new German government team assumes its functions at a time when the EU is confronted with the greatest strategic and geopolitical challenges since the end of the Cold War35 years ago. Merz proved to be aware of these challenges by multiplying the radical statements about the degradation of the transatlantic relationship and the urgency that Europe assumes its own destiny. And it is undoubtedly in Paris, where the new chancellor will make – as tradition wants – his first visit abroad this Wednesday where expectations are larger.
