The Chancellor has factual knowledge, but what he lacks is empathy. You can see this not only in the way Uni Junge is treated. Six reasons why Mehr became chancellor without a majority.
The main problem of Friedrich Merz not the young, but the mature Unity, namely himself. The flowers of his chancellorship quickly withered; Frost covered the front of the window.
Merz is a winter king suffering from a political flu of his own making. His coalition was not threatened with death from overheating, but from frostbite. Here he is six reasonsWhy is that.
1. Merz is a gambler, not a strategist
After the knife attack in Aschaffenburg on January 22 2025, Merz appeared determined in front of the TV cameras. He said: “A right decision does not become wrong because the wrong person agrees with it. It remains right.”
His move to join the AfD days before the federal election did not broaden its scope, but narrowed it. The decision was made in front of an angry public and instructions were given in writing soon after Angela Merkel make that Merz SPD prisoners.
At that time Merkel said: “I think it would be wrong if we no longer feel bound by this proposal and thus allow the AfD to gain a majority with the AfD vote for the first time in a vote in the German Bundestag.”
If he had a strategy to deal with the AfD, it will be destroyed. An endeavor as difficult as approaching right-wing populist groups requires sensitivity, preparation, and allies. Merz has none of these things.
2. Merz has factual knowledge, what he lacks is empathy
Merz has alienated his biggest Union fan base in a matter of weeks: young politicians. Friends become critics, critics now become rivals.
First he signaled his support for Junge Union Support on pension issues. He said in October that he wanted to ensure “personally” that pension packages were tightened again.
Then he went to the Junge Union party conference at Europa-Park in Rust, without first consulting the JU leadershipJohn Winkel to seek. He did not embrace the young Christian Democrats, but instead insulted them: “I would like to ask you to take part in this debate constructively and actively, but not by simply saying what is impossible.”
Once stubborn, always stubborn. So he flew back to Berlin and went straight to the ARD TV studio, where JU man Winkel was actually on the program. He had to turn around because he was already on his way to the television studio. Merz got the right way.
3. Merz was Chancellor, but not a skilled negotiator
Even before his faction leader Jens Spahn able to rebalance the complicated pension issue with the leadership of the SPD parliamentary group, Merz has destroyed all negotiating options. Spahn wants to play pokerbut Merz turned the page by saying: “I will approve this retirement package with a clear conscience.”
And yesterday, from South Africa at the G20 meeting, he reported on ARD, im Report from Berlinsaid again: “We all have to move here to find a good solution. The SPD is already moving.”
That’s all at the latest Technical question to Question of power becomes: You or me, that’s what men now say. As The Pioneer learned, said Merz, last Wednesday Minister of Manpower Bas has stated that he may be forced – without SPD concessions – to threaten internally with a vote of confidence.
4. Merz locked himself in his own cabinet
Because he wanted to become Chancellor of Foreign Affairs so much that he did not want to accept a foreign minister from the SPD, he handed over strategically important departments, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social Affairs, to the Social Democrats.
This means that he is not the ruler of his own cabinet, but rather the ruler a dependent employee. Caught between the savings targets set by the Minister of Finance and the spending desires of the Minister of Social Welfare, de facto he has no political leeway. Moreover, this was not secured in the coalition agreement.
5. Merz pushed for reforms that went nowhere
The reforms carried out by Friedrich Merz were so small that… did not change course become. The secretary general of the CDU he leads not only knows, but also says, that it will not be enough to implement the coalition agreement piecemeal. Linnemann at the book launch “System Failure: The Rise and Fall of a Great Economy”: “It will not be enough if we work through the coalition agreement piece by piece and be confident that we have done justice to the existing dimensions of the problem. We are running out of time.”
This is what all the famous experts see, which is why 22 economists see it too Veronica Grimm, Clemens Fuest, Lars Feld, Johanna Hey And Bert Rurupwarned against making cheap compromises now for the sake of the future. The call states regarding the black-and-red pension plan: “Demographic-related structural problems in the pension system will worsen and there will be additional burdens shifted between generations – at the expense of the younger generation, who are already under increasing financial pressure today. The pension package must therefore be withdrawn across the board.”
6. Merz didn’t have a plan B
Merz joins the race lack of compromise exactly where it says on the wall: So far and no further.
He does not trust himself to form a minority government. But he also won’t survive the new elections, as the Union will try other candidates during the nomination process. In this case, this is all that remains Threatening a vote of confidence as the final instrument of discipline. Jens Spahn on TV last night: “Everyone knows what is happening right now.”
But this rhetoric cannot be used often Markus Soder around the same time in Report from Berlin commented: “Incidentally, questions of trust are not an element of strengthening trust, but are usually a precursor to something worse.”
Conclusion: Friedrich Merz is a man with iron will And limited choices. He believed that a series of unfortunate circumstances was the cause of his misery. Voltaire would contradict this: “Chance is a word without meaning; nothing can exist without a cause.”
