Friedrich Merz received a rude shock on the morning of May 6, 2025, as he prepared to lose the “in-waiting” qualifier from his title as German chancellor.
After weeks of negotiations following February’s federal election, Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) had struck a coalitional bargain with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), giving the bloc a thin majority of 13 seats in the 630-member Bundestag, the lower house of Germany’s parliament. Yet, Merz still struggled to ratify his chancellorship.
