One unnecessarily made mistake follows the next: Friedrich Merz during an appearance in the Berlin Chancellery.Image: keystone
A year after taking office, the German government already seems to be at its end. That has to do with the external circumstances, but also with the person of the Chancellor.
May 1, 2026, 2:05 p.mMay 1, 2026, 2:05 p.m
Hansjörg Friedrich Müller, Berlin / ch media
Friedrich Merz’s coalition is in crisis. That was to be expected given the external circumstances. That the German government would present itself in such a disastrous manner, just a year after taking office, is still a surprise.
Given the poor economic situation, Europe’s challenge from Trump and Putin, and the rise of the AfD, one would have expected that Merz’s Christian Democrats and their Social Democratic partner would bring about effective reforms despite ideological differences. However, the compromises they have found so far serve more to ensure the government’s survival than to significantly improve the country’s situation. This is fatal in a crisis.
A chancellor would have to be made of sterner stuff
It is still less likely that the coalition will collapse than that the government will drag its feet until the next regular election date in three years. Whether Merz will remain chancellor until then is another question: doubts about him are also growing in his own party.
Merz’s difficulties not only have to do with the circumstances, but also with his person. The list of his verbal mistakes is long: some of them are played up by an excited press, for example his complaint about “problems in the cityscape”,after which he was – certainly wrongly – accused of racism.
A head of government has to live with the fact that political competitors, but also journalists, interpret his statements to his disadvantage. A top politician should be able to anticipate and, if possible, avoid such situations. It is clear that this cannot always be achieved, but Merz fails too often to call it just bad luck.
He recently told “Spiegel” that no other Chancellor had to endure such harsh attacks as he did. Even a superficial knowledge of German post-war history is enough to recognize the absurdity of his statement: Every head of government in the Federal Republic was verbally attacked at least as brutally as Merz, some were much harsher, such as the social democrat Willy Brandt, whom CDU members themselves accused of being born out of wedlock.
Merz has no strategy any more than Trump does
Merz’s anger is humanly understandable: Anyone who finds themselves in a difficult situation often perceives their situation as even bleaker than it actually is. What is less understandable is that his press people left the statement alone. In German-language journalism, it is common for the interviewee to be able to proofread an interview before publication and make changes to the wording. Either an abyss of unprofessionalism is opening up in the Chancellor’s office – or some of his employees want to harm the Chancellor.
Just a few days before the “Spiegel” interview appeared, Merz was noticed by another unnecessarily made mistake: in front of students in his Sauerland homeland He said that the Americans “obviously have no strategy” in Iran. Merz doesn’t know what he’s talking about, replied American President Donald Trump.
The Chancellor is probably right in this matter, and the question of whether self-respect allows one to get along well with a bully like Trump in the long term is also justified. However, there is some evidence to suggest that Merz once again spoke without thinking, as until recently he claimed that his relationship with the American president was intact. In any case, the Chancellor seems to have no more of an America strategy than Trump does of an Iran strategy.
The fact that he became Chancellor is already a symptom of the crisis
Merz seems like a man who is overwhelmed in office. This is less surprising than it might initially seem: two decades ago, when he would have been in his prime to become chancellor, he did not become one. The quality of political personnel was even higher back then; to competitors like Angela Merkel Merz didn’t come over.
The fact that he still made it to the chancellor’s office at the age of seventy is due to an exceptional situation: his party, but also the SPD, were exhausted in terms of personnel and ideas as perhaps never before in their history. Merz’s unlikely rise is already a symptom of a crisis. This is a very poor starting point for tackling the country’s problems. (aargauerzeitung.ch)