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EXPERT COMMENT

Although Friedrich Merz has big ambitions for Germany’s international role, significant domestic pressures remain and will constrain his government’s room for manoeuvre.

After three years of an inward-looking German government preoccupied with infighting, new chancellor Friedrich Merz has promised that ‘Germany is back’ – both in Europe and on the international stage. His first days as chancellor were set to emphasize this ambition, with visits to Paris, Warsaw, Brussels and Kyiv, the latter together with the leaders of France, Poland and the UK. The new government’s coalition treaty promises a stronger, more integrated German foreign and EU policy, enabling it to play a bigger role in European security and deterrence against Russia.

But the vote to formally appoint Merz as chancellor was much more dramatic than anticipated. He was the first chancellor candidate in Germany’s post-war history to fail to get the required absolute majority in the Bundestag, despite his CDU/CSU–SPD coalition holding such a majority. Although Merz won a second round of voting on the same day, the message is clear: his domestic power base is fragile and old certainties about the stability of German politics are gone.

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