COPY LINK

For members

POLITICS

Who is the conservative leader hoping to become Germany’s next chancellor?

Many people in Germany might be familiar with the name Friedrich Merz. But as the CDU leader has just been named the party's candidate for next year's elections, we dig deeper into who he is and what he stands for.

Published: 18 September 2024 17:24 CEST

CDU chairman Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder, CSU chairman, hold a press conference on the question of the Union's candidate for chancellor. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

Germans will go to the polls in autumn 2025 to vote for a new federal parliament.

In the latest polls conducted in mid-September, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties were riding high at over 30 percent.

The conservative bloc will be hoping these poll numbers come to fruition so they can govern Germany once again. A year is a long way off and a lot can change. But if the CDU/CSU do win the next election Friedrich Merz will likely become the next German Chancellor.

This week Merz, 68, was crowned the chancellor candidate by his party, knocking Bavarian state leader Markus Söder out of the race.

Merz announced his intention to get the current coalition government, made up of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP), out of government.

“We have only one goal, to dislodge the ‘traffic light’ coalition and to get Germany back on track,” said Merz.

Merz will be going up against current Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, who is the party’s chancellor candidate once again. The SPD are currently hovering around third place in recent polls with about 15 percent, just behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Who is Friedrich Merz and what does he stand for?

The right-wing leaning conservative has made a remarkable comeback to the German political scene despite some ups and downs.

The wealthy father-of-three had withdrawn from frontline politics in 2002 after a party power struggle with former chancellor and CDU stalwart Angela Merkel

But he announced in 2020 he was quitting his job on the supervisory board of the German arm of investment firm BlackRock to dedicate himself to politics and helping the CDU “renew itself”.

After a speech, Friedrich Merz receives a cabbage and a bottle of beer as a gift at the Schleswig-Holstein CDU state representative meeting in 2001.

After a speech, Friedrich Merz receives a cabbage and a bottle of beer as a gift at the Schleswig-Holstein CDU state representative meeting in 2001. Photo: picture-alliance / dpa/dpaweb | Wulf_Pfeiffer

The corporate lawyer then failed in two previous bids to win the CDU leadership but emerged as leader in 2021, taking the baton from Armin Laschet.

Favoured by the CDU’s most conservative members, Merz has been shifting the party to the right in a bid to claw back voters lost to the anti-immigration AfD.

During the unveiling of the CDU’s Grundsatzprogramm, which sets out the party’s core principles, in May this year, Merz underlined how he would like to run Germany, with a focus on tougher asylum rules, identity politics plus incentives to work longer hours and later in life.

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that during the migration debate that’s flared in the last few months, Merz has tried to position himself as the politician who’s not afraid to speak up.

Following the fatal knife attack in August in which three people were killed in Solingen allegedly by a failed Syrian asylum seeker with links to the Islamic State (IS) group, Merz called for a meeting with Chancellor Scholz and then spoke to the press about the tougher rules he wanted to see in Germany, which included declaring a “national emergency”.

Scholz was keen to hit back in a recent Bundestag debate that the CDU was “talking in slogans” but “not getting anything done”.

“You’re the type of politician who believes that he’s solved the migration issue after one interview in the Bild am Sonntag,” Scholz said, referring to Germany’s popular right-wing tabloid. “But you’ve barely left the editorial offices before you’ve forgotten what you proposed.”

Merz is generally conservative on social issues and pro-business when it comes to economic policy. He wants the focus of the CDU to be centred on family and identity.

For instance, the CDU under Merz is pushing Leitkultur (leading culture) which the party says means “a shared awareness of home and belonging”, an “understanding of our traditions and customs” and knowledge of German culture and language, as well as a commitment to the German constitution.

Their political programme also states that immigrants should accept these things “without ifs or buts”.

What’s the reaction to Merz as chancellor candidate?

Some politicians slammed Merz’ policies and raised concerns about him keeping up the Brandmauer (firewall) against working with the AfD. All mainstream parties currently refuse to work with the AfD, preventing them from entering government.

Left Party leader Janine Wissler said the CDU was on a “heartless” course and that Merz was no guarantee for the stability of the Brandmauer against the far-right.

Green Party leader Ricarda Lang told the Tagesspiegel that by choosing Merz as its candidate for chancellor, the CDU/CSU had “bid farewell to the Merkel era”.

Next year’s federal election is about “who we want to be as a country”, she added. “We are looking forward to a sporting competition for the best ideas for the future of the country, not for its past.”

Meanwhile, Chancellor Scholz kept it simple. In response to a question on the matter, he said: “It’s fine with me if Friedrich Merz is the Union’s candidate for chancellor.”

Member comments

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Could Germany's dual nationality law be reversed?

In an article assessing Germany’s latest migration figures this week, Die Zeit raised a pertinent question: “What is actually out of control here,” asked journalist Mark Schieritz. “The migration, or the debate?”

While the number of asylum applications has been sinking dramatically this year – along with the number of so-called economic migrants – the discussion around migration has been building to a fever pitch.

In response to huge gains by the far-right AfD in both EU and eastern state elections, the government immediately sprung into action, extending controversial checks along all nine of Germany’s foreign borders.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) declared his intention to carry out “deportations on a grand scale” as mainstream parties met for a migration summit that quickly collapsed in disagreement.

At the same time, anti-migrant rhetoric has been ramping up, causing Deutschlandfunk to draw parallels with the early 1990s, when Germany saw a spate attacks against both refugees and foreigners who had been settled in the country for decades.

All of this feels very far removed from the Germany that has been desperate to court skilled foreigner workers over the past year, and that has fought to overturn a decades-long ban on dual nationality – which finally happened in June.

But it has caused some to wonder if the tide could be shifting, and if hard-won rights like dual nationality could be set to go out of the window. Here’s where things stand at present.

Threats from the CDU

The biggest threat to the dual nationality law arguably comes from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties, who are long-standing opponents of the bill.

Shortly after the new citizenship law entered into force back in June, immigration spokesperson Alexander Throm told DPA that the parties intended to scrap it.

“The CDU and CSU will reverse this unsuccessful reform,” he said. “Dual citizenship must remain the exception and be limited to countries that share our values.”

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag

CDU politician Alexander Throm speaks in a debate in the German Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Soeder

But is this all hot air from a party that has vehemently campaigned against dual nationality for years on end? In the opinion of most political experts, the answer is yes.

“The CDU’s announcement that they would abolish the authorisation of dual citizenship is a desperate attempt to react to the growth of the AfD,” Nils Diederich, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, told The Local.

However, the party is unlikely to have the numbers in parliament to do so – even if they win the next election.

That’s because Germany’s system tends to rely on coalition governments, and every single one of the CDU and CSU’s viable coalition partners – the Greens, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Free Democrats (FDP) – supports dual nationality.

This was backed up by Greens immigration expert Filiz Polat, who told The Local: “The CDU/CSU is completely isolated with its announcement that it will revoke the citizenship law in the event of a change of government.”

Furthermore, the CDU and CSU are highly unlikely to ever have the numbers in the Bundesrat to change the law. The upper house of parliament is comprised of state coalition governments that all need to agree in order to vote in favour of legislation.

With the exception of Bavaria, where the CSU governs alongside the Free Voters, or Freier Wähler, party, every single state coalition the CDU is part of involves some combination of of the Greens, SPD and FDP. As the parties who worked on and ultimately passed this law, they are unlikely to agree to overturn it.

What about the far-right AfD?

Many foreigners in Germany are understandably worried about the rise of the extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who seem to be going from strength to strength lately.

In Bundestag debates on the new citizenship law, the AfD spoke out vehemently against the changes – a stance that is reiterated in the party’s Grundsatzprogramm, or key policy programme.

“The AfD rejects the ‘double passport’, i.e. the acquisition of German citizenship with the simultaneous continuation or acquisition of another citizenship,” the party writes. “Although this does not rule out well-founded special cases.”

In addition, they say, the requirements for naturalisation must be significantly increased.

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering 'The east is doing it - class in German' in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th

A car drives past a billboard displaying an election campaign poster for Alternative for Germany (AfD) with the lettering ‘The east is doing it – class in German’ in Altenburg, eastern Germany on August 20th. Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

In spite of their recent successes in eastern states, however, the far-right party is still a long way away from seizing power in Germany on a national level (or even at the state level).

That’s primarily because all the major parties – including the CDU – have what’s known as a Brandmauer, or firewall, in place, that prevents them from formally cooperating with the AfD.

So, even if the CDU and CSU parties technically have the numbers to enter a coalition with the AfD after next year’s federal elections, the party’s constitution explicitly forbids them from doing so.

Any informal agreement – such as a pact to overturn the dual nationality law, for example – would also be politically toxic, and would almost inevitably split the party.

Where does the government stand?

Currently, the so-called traffic light coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP – named after the parties’ three colours – is engaged in something of a balancing act.

While the rhetoric around migration has taken on a much more combative tone, the coalition has set a clear dividing line between legal skilled migration and uncontrolled, irregular migration.

In a fiery speech in the Bundestag on September 11th, Scholz emphasised Germany’s desperate need for migration to combat current labour shortages.

“There is no country in the world with a shrinking labour force that has economic growth,” he said. “That is the truth that we are confronted with.”

The chancellor also noted that Germany’s constitution mandates the protection of people who face danger and persecution. In other words: asylum seekers.

“Openness to the world is therefore necessary,” he explained. “But cosmopolitanism does not mean that anyone who wants to can come. We must be able to choose who comes to Germany.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Bundestag

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) gives an impassioned speech during the general debate on the budget on September 11th, 2024. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

According to political scientist Diederich, this cuts to the heart of the current issue.

“The authorisation of multiple citizenship has little to do with unregulated immigration,” he told The Local. “Naturalisation is granted to people who have been living legally in Germany for several years and who have successfully integrated into German society.”

On the other hand, Diederich said, the fear of “foreign infiltration” through unchecked, irregular and unwanted migration is being fuelled for political purposes.

“It’s not only the AfD doing this,” he added.

At present, the government seems laser-focused on dividing their pro-migration policies – like the recent skilled worker law and citizenship reform – from the need to quell irregular migration.

For foreigners here legally, this means that routes to German citizenship – and indeed, dual nationality – are set to remain in place for the forseeable future.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!