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By JAMES ANGELOS
with NETTE NÖSTLINGER
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FALLING OUT OF LOVE
CONSERVATIVE DISILLUSIONMENT: Friedrich Merz’s post-election honeymoon period, to the extent it ever existed, looks already to be coming to an end.
Vulnerable right flank: Not that we’d be so self-absorbed as to congratulate ourselves for calling it, but two weeks ago, in our Merz the Merkelian edition, we highlighted how the incoming chancellor’s historic move to take on massive debt for infrastructure and defense opened him up to attacks from the right and could ultimately benefit the radical Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Told you so: Well, it looks like the far right is benefiting already. In the latest benchmark Deutschlandtrend poll, the AfD reached a new high of 24 percent, just behind Merz’s conservatives, who fell to 26 percent. Perhaps even worse for Merz, only 25 percent of Germans approve of his performance, down 10 percentage points since February, when the conservatives won the national election.
Merz’s flip: These considerable shifts have a lot to do with the fact that Merz, right after the election, did exactly the opposite of what he’d preached beforehand, embracing the debt-fueled spending left-wing parties have long advocated and contradicting his longstanding vows to maintain fiscal stringency. That, combined with the sense among many Merz supporters that coalition negotiations with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) are failing to yield clear conservative policy stances, is fomenting dissatisfaction in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) base.
Hurtful words: The situation in Berlin “is a political disaster and a great disappointment for the many committed members of the grassroots,” members of the conservative bloc’s youth organization in the city of Cologne wrote in a letter to Merz. “Mr. Merz, we believed in your political leadership. We trusted you. And we have fought for you. But we are now asking the question: for what? For a CDU that submits to the left-wing mainstream?”
Under pressure: “If this course is not corrected immediately, you will not only jeopardize the CDU’s profile — you will destroy the trust of the people and the commitment of its members,” the letter went on. The youth branch then demanded Merz follow through on his pledges to reject asylum seekers at the border, refuse tax increases, and to institute “a massive reduction in bureaucracy.”
Stalling for time? This week, Merz’s CDU headquarters cancelled a planned meeting of the party’s executive board scheduled for Monday, creating the impression among some that the incoming chancellor was avoiding discussing how the coalition negotiations were going. “The party is seething everywhere and the chairman and the secretary general think that in this situation, it’s best to even stop communicating with his leadership committee,” one board member told the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
A matter of leverage: The problem for Merz, as we pointed out here, is that he doesn’t have much leverage to make the SPD bend to conservatives’ will. That’s because, with the massive spending plan, he’s already given the SPD much of what it wanted, and he has no other viable coalition partner as he’s ruled out an alliance with the AfD.
So much for strong German leadership: In a time of massive upheaval, with the Trump hitting Europe with 20 percent “Liberation Day” tariffs and often siding with the Kremlin over the war in Ukraine, European leaders have been looking forward to a strong German chancellor after years of a weak, divided government under SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Damage control: But it now looks like Merz will begin his chancellorship politically weakened. That may inhibit his ability to make Germany a country that boldly leads Europe, or, as he vowed after his election win, “to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
Instead, Merz may have to spend more time repairing his image at home.
FREE TRADE HOPES
HOPE DIES LAST: Germany’s leaders still hold out hope that a free-trade agreement could be the end result once the dust settles on the Trump’s trade conflict. After Trump dumped the European Union in the worst category of America’s trade partners Wednesday, hitting the bloc with a 20 percent tariff on all imports, Germany’s conservatives in particular were still holding out hope that a tough EU response now will lure Trump to the negotiating table.
Three-step plan: Conservative and SPD politicians confirmed to POLITICO that they hoped to convince Brussels — which oversees European trade policy — to respond in three phases, first with tough counter tariffs. That retaliation should bring the Trump administration to the negotiation table, they hope, where finally a full-fledged free trade agreement — or a partial deal reducing tariffs on industrial goods on both sides — could be reached.
Not on their own: Berlin would, however, need a coalition of the willing in Brussels to back the revival of negotiations with the U.S. Despite Merz’s close contact to French President Emmanuel Macron and their joint vow to revive the German-Franco alliance, the two countries have been at odds on multiple trade files in recent years. Macron on Thursday called on EU businesses to stop investing in America in response to Trump’s massive tariffs.
Eric’s advice: Eric Trump, the president’s third child, had this advice for those hoping to close a deal: “I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win — the last will absolutely lose.”
IN OTHER NEWS
AFD YOUTH: The extremist youth group affiliated with the AfD dissolved itself on Monday to avert a possible ban. The “Young Alternative” has been classified as a right-wing extremist group by Germany’s domestic intelligence service since 2023. That designation meant the youth group faced a potential ban under a German law intended to prevent a repeat of the country’s Nazi past. The AfD will now found a new youth organization that, unlike the Young Alternative, will be directly under the control of party leadership — raising the legal hurdle for banning it, while protecting the AfD itself which, in case of a ban of its youth branch, would have been in trouble. Full story here.
SPEAKING OF A BAN: In the wake of a French court ruling that deemed Marine Le Pen ineligible to stand in elections for the next five years, German media outlets asked if the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, might face a similar fate. The assumption is based on a formulation in the draft coalition agreement in which the conservatives and SPD agree to implement “the withdrawal of the right to stand for election in the event of multiple convictions for incitement to hatred.” Höcke, who has been found guilty of using Nazi slogans in the past, isn’t pleased with the coalition plan. “The opposition is to be criminalized and ultimately eliminated by depriving them of the right to vote,” he said on X:
COMMEMORATION CONTROVERSY: Disagreement between Israeli officials and the organizers of a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany risk overshadowing the event. The dispute began after the head of a foundation overseeing the Buchenwald memorial near Weimar in the east of the country invited German-Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm — the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and a critic of the Israeli government — to speak at Sunday’s anniversary ceremony. Full story here.
GERMAN BRIGADE: Germany officially launched its first permanent foreign troop deployment since World War II on Tuesday — a 5,000-strong armored brigade in Lithuania. A temporary headquarters was established, with the brigade’s crest unveiled and the unit now officially under the command of Brigadier General Christoph Huber. Berlin pledged the long-term deployment in 2023, breaking with decades of German defense policy that avoided permanent stationing of combat troops abroad. The unit is set to be fully operational by 2027. Full story here.
THE WEEK AHEAD
TRADE SUMMIT: Economy Minister Robert Habeck is set to join counterparts in Luxemburg on Monday for a EU ministerial meeting focused on trade.
ECONOMIC FORECAST: On Thursday, Germany’s leading economic institutes present their economic forecast for the current and the coming year.
DEFENSE MEETINGS: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will take part in a meeting of the coalition of the willing format at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. The next day, he’ll attend a meeting of the Defense Contact Group for Ukraine, which will be jointly hosted by the United Kingdom and Germany at the same location.
Thanks to Douglas Busvine.
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