Friedrich Merz is the chancellor of Germany and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was 69 years old when he took office in May 2025, making him the oldest new chancellor in 75 years. On his first attempt at investiture on May 6th 2025 he fell six votes short of the majority he needed.
Merz grew up in the Sauerland, a well-to-do, rural Catholic region in western Germany. He trained as a lawyer before entering politics. After a brief spell in the European Parliament, which associates say left a lasting mark on him, he entered the Bundestag in 1994. He quickly made his name as an ambitious right-winger, pushing proposals such as steeping immigrants in German culture.
His ascent was aided by a relationship with Wolfgang Schäuble, a CDU grandee whom Merz has called "the closest friend I ever had in politics." In 2002, however, Angela Merkel, then the CDU's leader, ejected him from the party's top ranks. Thwarted, he quit politics a few years later for a lucrative career in the private sector, including a stint chairing the German arm of BlackRock, an asset manager.
When Merkel resigned the CDU leadership in 2018, Merz ran to replace her but lost to a Merkel protégée. He lost a second leadership contest as well. It was only in early 2022, with the CDU running out of options, that the party finally turned to him. He silenced many doubters with outreach to the party's liberal wing and pacified the CDU's restive Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU). Colleagues describe him as a brisk, demanding manager in "American-CEO style", honed during his years in the private sector.
Many ordinary Germans are put off by Merz's stentorian mode of address and his habit of flying himself to meetings in his private plane. Colleagues say he can be sentimental and emotional in private, especially when children are involved. But he has a mercurial streak: a tendency towards resentful, impulsive outbursts that colleagues say is impossible to predict. He has had to apologise repeatedly for off-colour remarks about gays or immigrants.
In January 2025, during the election campaign, Merz decided to rely on support from the hard-right Alternative for Germany over a symbolic anti-immigration measure. It backfired: the CDU/CSU slumped below 30% in the election on February 23rd, while the AfD notched its best-ever result. Die Linke, energised by the furore, surged enough to give fringe parties the seats to block constitutional changes in parliament.
Merz was thus forced to push fiscal and defence policy changes through the old Bundestag before the new one convened—a move completely counter to the fiscal rectitude on which he had campaigned. On election night he declared that Europe had to "achieve independence" from America. Only a third of voters expected him to do a good job, and the CDU/CSU fell behind the AfD in some polls.
On May 6th 2025 Merz was sworn in as chancellor, but only at the second attempt: the first Bundestag vote left him six votes short of the majority he needed, an unprecedented rebuke, after at least 18 lawmakers from his own bloc and the SPD declined to back him in the secret ballot. A hasty change to parliamentary procedures enabled a second vote the same day, which got him over the line.
On March 1st 2026 Merz offered a masterclass in bleak realism regarding the American-Israeli war on Iran. Calling it pointless to debate the legality of strikes that killed Ali Khamenei and other high-ups, he catalogued reasons not to mourn their "regime of terror" and declared that Germany would not criticise the strikes. Europe needs America's help to defend Ukraine, he said: "This is not the time to lecture our partners and allies." He had previously said that Israel deserves thanks for doing the world's "dirty work".
His coalition with the SPD holds a majority of just 12 seats. Immediately after taking office Merz embarked on a series of trips—first across Europe (Paris, Warsaw, Brussels, Kyiv) and then to America—quickly earning the tag Aussenkanzler (foreign chancellor). Colleagues describe his management style as top-down and "CEO-like", which works well in foreign policy but ruffles feathers at home. He has structured the government to centralise foreign policy in the chancellery. The cabinet includes Johann Wadephul, a close party ally, as foreign minister; Alexander Dobrindt as interior minister; and Boris Pistorius, whose term as defence minister was renewed. Lars Klingbeil, the SPD co-leader, serves as vice-chancellor. Jens Spahn leads Merz's parliamentary group.
Merz says he intends to make the Bundeswehr the "strongest conventional army in Europe." He has signalled that Germany will sign up to a NATO long-term spending target of 3.5% of GDP for defence, plus 1.5% for related infrastructure — some €215bn a year. In Vilnius at the inauguration of Germany's 45th Panzer brigade, he said: "Lithuania's security is also our security."
On his first full day in office Merz embarked on a whistle-stop tour of France and Poland. He has said that Germany, France, Poland and Britain should form a European "contact group" to back Ukraine. His net approval rating has fallen to -43% per YouGov after less than a year in office. He has taken to blaming the EU for Germany's economic ills; his allies have suggested the European Commission should be slimmed down. A large majority of Germans say they do not trust him.
Merz publicly ruled out swift EU accession for Ukraine, stating that it cannot join the bloc while at war and must meet strict standards on the rule of law, corruption and other fundamental principles. At the EU's Cyprus summit in April 2026, however, he broadly endorsed provisional membership for Ukraine, arguing that Zelensky would need to be given a pathway that ultimately leads to "full membership of the European Union" in order to win a peace referendum involving territorial concessions.
After his much-heralded "autumn of reforms" flopped in 2025, Merz wants to push a series of changes to tax, health insurance and pensions before the Bundestag adjourns for summer 2026. Whether he gets his way depends largely on whether Lars Klingbeil, his SPD coalition partner, can bring his party to swallow tricky compromises. The SPD was soundly defeated in elections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg in March 2026, leaving the junior coalition partner in its most dire electoral position in years.
A year into office Merz is deeply unpopular: just 13% of Germans say they are satisfied with his work and only 11% think his government is doing a good job. The CDU/CSU has slid in polls to just 23% (it won the 2025 election with 29%); the SPD languishes on 13%. The AfD leads in national polling and hopes to take power for the first time when Saxony-Anhalt votes in September 2026. The coalition's slim majority of 12 leaves it vulnerable to backbench rebellions. In May 2026 the government halved its 2026 growth projection to 0.5%, citing the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz and the sluggish pace of domestic reforms; pensions consume a quarter of the federal budget and the government must find a way to trim €4bn from its bill.
On April 27th 2026 Merz said America was being "humiliated" by Iran and "obviously had no strategy" in the war it had started alongside Israel. A peeved Donald Trump said he would withdraw some 5,000 American troops stationed in Germany, and possibly more elsewhere. About 39,000 Americans are stationed in or rotating through bases in Germany and 80,000 are active across Europe. America also said it would no longer deploy in Germany one of its three new Multi-Domain Task Forces, units combining very long-range cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and AI-driven targeting—the 2nd MDTF can identify 1,500 targets in 24 hours and fire salvos of about 16 missiles at once.
Merz promised four big changes in his first months: cutting red tape, more frequent border checkpoints, reform of Bürgergeld (Germany's minimum income) and corporate-tax cuts. Construction permits have sped up, minimum-income reform is in the works, and companies can write off more capital investment; a lower corporate-tax rate will take effect in 2028.
In July 2025 he had to cancel a parliamentary vote on three appointments to Germany's constitutional court after some of his own deputies rebelled against the nomination of Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, a law professor, over her liberal views on abortion. Merz said the attacks against her amounted to personal defamation; she subsequently withdrew her candidacy.
In November 2025 the coalition faced its most serious conflict when the Junge Union (JU), the CDU/CSU's youth organisation, rebelled against a draft pension-reform law. Johannes Winkel, the JU's head, and 17 other young MPs vowed to vote against it, arguing it would incur €120bn in added costs between 2032 and 2040 by locking in a temporary pension guarantee as the benchmark for future levels. With some 20 older MPs threatening to join, the rebellion exceeded Merz's majority of 12 seats. The SPD rejected any modification. Merz conceded the additional burden on the younger generation could not be justified, but said going ahead with a minority government would be "out of the question", as it would require relying on the AfD.
Merz's conversion to the cause of seizing frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine helped energise European efforts. He insists the proceeds of a proposed "reparations loan"—backed by $163bn in frozen Russian assets held mostly in Belgium—must be used only to buy weapons, not to fill Ukraine's budget gap. His real intention may be to press other donors, such as Japan and Canada, to provide budget support, and to prod Ukraine to raise more revenue or cut spending.
Though a staunch supporter of Israel, by late May 2025 Merz said that "the current level of attacks on Gaza can no longer be justified." On August 8th 2025 he halted German exports to Israel of weapons that could be used in Gaza, without consulting anyone but his closest advisers—upsetting CDU and CSU lawmakers as well as some state premiers. Markus Söder, the CSU leader and premier of Bavaria, was particularly aggrieved not to have been sounded out. Germany sold a third of the arms Israel imported during 2020-24.
By late 2025 Merz, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer had formed a tight trilateral leadership known as the E3, with their national-security advisers—Britain's Jonathan Powell, France's Emmanuel Bonne and Germany's Günter Sautter—speaking several times a week. The format took root after Merz took office and the three leaders made an 11-hour train ride together to Kyiv. The E3 first emerged in 2003, when the three countries' foreign ministers went together to Tehran to negotiate over Iran's uranium enrichment. The revival has a lot to do with the three men themselves: each has spent time outside politics (Merz as a corporate lawyer, Starmer as a public prosecutor, Macron as an investment banker) and each is deeply unpopular at home. Johann Wadephul, Germany's foreign minister, called the E3 Europe's "working muscle". Germany will not put boots on the ground in Ukraine, but Merz has co-chaired meetings of the "coalition of the willing" planning a reassurance force to be sent there in the event of a ceasefire.
Merz invested early in Emmanuel Macron, and the two share an unusually good personal chemistry. Both are former financiers who speak English together. In private Macron calls him "direct, simple, frank, aligned"; Merz has celebrated their "deep personal bond." Merz's bold, sometimes surprising approach to policymaking—especially his decision to loosen Germany's debt rules for defence—impressed his French partner. The two have issued joint op-eds and travelled together to Washington and Kyiv. In August 2025 the two governments held their 25th joint cabinet meeting in Toulon. Merz also seeks to revitalise the "Weimar triangle" with Poland, and joined Donald Tusk on a visit to Moldova to back its pro-Western government.
On July 17th 2025 Merz made his first official trip to Britain, signing a wide-ranging Anglo-German "friendship" treaty with Keir Starmer—Germany's first major bilateral agreement since its Elysée Treaty with France in 1963. He has praised Britain's "special role" in European politics, especially on defence, and is said to find Starmer easier to deal with than Emmanuel Macron. The treaty includes joint development of a long-range strike missile, a mutual-assistance clause modelled on the Franco-British Lancaster House treaties, and a loosening of Germany's onerous weapons-export restrictions. German defence firms including Rheinmetall and Helsing are increasing investments in Britain.
Merz campaigned on a day-one clampdown on illegal migration alongside better relations with Germany's neighbours—pledges that sit in tension. On May 7th 2025 his interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, rescinded an order from the Merkel era obliging border police to admit asylum-seekers, and now permits turning all but "vulnerable" arrivals away. Merz wants annual asylum claims below 100,000. His Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, warned he would "not accept anyone—including Germany—sending groups of migrants to Poland." Asylum claims have tumbled in the past year, more from changes elsewhere than from German policy.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock.