Europe must be strong to battle against Trump – but Germany is self-destructing ...Middle East

For all the careful choreography of his confirmation as Germany’s new chancellor, Christian-democrat leader Friedrich Merz is still waiting to take up his job after MPs humiliatingly failed to confirm him today.

Everything had been set until now. After his conservative CDU/CSU political union won the elections last February, Merz hammered out a coalition deal with the centre-left SPD, including constitution-tweaking measures to remove the debt brake so Germany could splurge on defence and infrastructure investment. SPD members backed the deal last week, their leaders formally signed the deal yesterday with the CDU/CSU, and last night, as part of a quirky German transition tradition, a military band performed a jaunty concert for the outgoing chancellor, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz. 

Today’s vote in the German parliament, the Bundestag, was supposed to be a mere formality: the coalition has 328 representatives, and Merz needed just 316 votes to be confirmed by the 630-member chamber. But he was backed by just 310, a six-vote shortfall. This is unprecedented in Germany’s history as a federal republic.

The defeat was not, as initially thought, due to absentee MPs, which would be embarrassing enough. Rather, it was because members in Merz’s own coalition voted against him.

This makes it harder to predict whether Merz, who has been tilting at the chancellery for more than two decades, can finally get over the line. A second vote could be scheduled for this week, but it would still require persuasion and possible compromises to win over the recalcitrant MPs.

So why did Merz fail to win the vote?

The 69-year-old CDU leader is a polarising figure. A former investment banker, he is widely recognised as dynamic and clever. But he is also known for being hot-headed, combative and politically impulsive – including his rash move before the election to ally with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in a Bundestag vote on immigration. 

Germany’s partners – especially France, Poland, Britain and the European Union authorities – are broadly hopeful that Merz can bring Berlin back to the fore at a perilous moment for Europe, after the torpor of the ultra-cautious Scholz. His defence plans and his outspoken criticism of US President Donald Trump suggest he is ready to revive the Franco-German motor driving the EU along with French President Emmanuel Macron.

However, these expectations may be overblown. Merz still needs to secure his fragile coalition. And at home, his base is far from steady.

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In the February 23 elections, his CDU-CSU alliance secured just 28.5 per cent of the vote, while the AfD – which Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency classified last week as a “proven” extremist organisation – came second with 20.8 per cent. In the weeks since, this already thin margin has vanished: last month, a poll put the AfD on 26 per cent and the CDU/CSU on 25 per cent.

“The whole of Europe looked to Berlin today in the hope that Germany would reassert itself as an anchor of stability and a pro-European powerhouse,’ said Jana Puglierin, who heads the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “That hope has been dashed. With consequences way beyond our borders.”

AfD leader Alice Weidel predictably responded to Bundestag debacle by calling for snap elections. That won’t happen: Merz will almost certainly find a way to clinch the vote and be sworn in as chancellor. However, it is a reminder that for all his achievements in cobbling a coalition and setting a new direction for Germany, his position is far from assured.

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