It was always clear that the next Bundeskanzler wasn’t signing up for a cushy gig. Internationally, he will wake up to Trumpsky’s latest tantrum every morning. Domestically, the pile of urgent to-dos is growing faster than German bureaucracy. And, as expected, the critics are already queueing up long before his new government has even left the starting blocks.
Unexpectedly, however, the most brutal blow to soon-to-be-chancellor Friedrich Merz just came from his own side: Horst Seehofer, a veteran of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU, didn’t quite bring out the chainsaw, but he certainly took the hedge clippers to Merz’s election promises, trimming them back to their underwhelming reality. Politikwechsel (political shift)? Snip. Wirtschaftswende (economic turnaround)? Snap.
The 75-year-old former interior minister delivered his pre-emptive damning verdict on the (not so) grand coalition via the tabloid Bild. Drawing on his experience of three previous CDU/CSU and SPD governments, he wryly noted: “At the beginning, the euphoria was usually great, and at the end, everyone was just relieved it was over.”
He then laid into Merz for Wortbruch – breaking his word – over the “1,000 billion euros in new debt,” which, he fumed, was “not in line with the credible policy change we promised.” This was, Seehofer scolded, “the opposite of what we said before the election.” Only to conclude: “Apparently the SPD and Greens had to lose the election in order to get everything they always wanted.”
Why does this matter? Well, the great virtue of political retirees is that they (finally) say what they actually think. You can safely assume that Seehofer is simply voicing what many conservatives are muttering behind closed doors: that the exhausted SPD (which got only 16.5% at the election) outmanoeuvred the CDU in negotiations, kicking overdue reforms down the road again.
Nowhere is this more glaring than in pension policy. Germany has wasted decades dithering about making the system sustainable in an ageing society. And despite the clock ticking towards collapse, Merz has no appetite for tackling it either.
From what’s been agreed so far, the coalition is assembling a crowd-pleasing package that showers benefits on farmers, pub landlords, restaurant owners and pensioners. Lovely for them – less so for everyone else, especially future generations who’ll foot the bill, while the hunger for disruptive change (on AfD’s menu) only grows.
In addition, it is not clear at all if and when Merz’s firm plans to curb illegal migration and increase deportations will have an effect. Prominent CDU figures boldly state that Germany will go solo, if need be, in pushing back asylum seekers at its land borders – but the SPD may insist on a more diplomatic (read: ineffective) approach that involves agreement from our neighbours, which is about as likely as Trump suddenly embracing seamless trade.
Meanwhile, fiscal hawks are warning that Germany’s multi-billion debt bazooka means opening Pandora’s box: it jeopardises European fiscal stability. If Berlin twitches at its budget rules (and not just for defence spending), why shouldn’t other EU countries with, let’s say, “creative” accounting habits do the same?
Adding to Merz’s woes, while the election result may have spared him the nightmare of a three-party coalition, he’s in desperate need of Green support to fund what could be Germany’s most expensive government yet. And soon.
Quick refresher: under Germany’s iron-clad fiscal rules, he needs a two-thirds parliamentary majority to raise billions in extra debt for defence and infrastructure. The only way to achieve it is by teaming up with either the far right or far left in the new Bundestag – both absolute non-starters – or by getting the Greens on board in the old one, as well as in the Bundesrat, the second chamber, within a fortnight.
You may have guessed it: the Greens are in no mood to please. Throughout the campaign (and, bafflingly, even afterwards), CDU and CSU treated them like a political punchbag. Now, many of Merz’s post-election plans look suspiciously like a recycled Green pre-election agenda (minus the climate action bit). And, understandably, the Greens, expect an “Entschuldigung” and a “Danke schön” – and that’s the cheapest part of getting them to cooperate.
Talks have started this week, but as a seasoned conservative told me: “Now would be the time for us to have people on board who actually know how to parley – not just those who try to steamroll and bulldoze their way through.”
Unfortunately, Merz is not exactly known for his soft-touch diplomacy. And he’s got precious little time to learn.
