Friedrich Merz, the presumptive chancellor of Germany, has confirmed he will seek a coalition with the social democratic SPD after the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) won the February 23 election, topping the poll with 28.5%. Although the SPD has gone from winning the last election to a record low result of 16.4% of the vote, it remains the only credible coalition partner for presumptive chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz.
Among Merz’s first acts was a bold statement that his first priority is “to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.
Things might have looked different for Merz. Had a small party, (the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW) won just 0.03% less of the vote, Merz would have needed to find a third coalition partner. That would have most likely meant trying to work with the Greens. This would have been a much more difficult circle to square for the centre right and an option that would have come with a far greater risk of early government collapse, if a deal could even have been reached in the first place.
