What held
up Friedrich Merz’s confirmation as chancellor and what’s next for Germany?
The CDU/CSU
leader suffered an embarrassing surprise defeat in a first vote that was
expected to be a formality
Jakub Krupa
Tue 6 May
2025 15.58 BST
Friedrich
Merz has been confirmed as Germany’s new chancellor but the process was not as
smooth as he would have liked – and that’s an understatement.
So what
happened?
After
lengthy negotiations, Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance formally signed a coalition
agreement with the Social Democrats (SPD) on Monday. The arrangement, billed as
“taking responsibility for Germany”, technically gives them 328 votes in the
new parliament.
Friedrich
Merz joins the CSU leader, Markus Söder (left), and SPD co-chairs Lars
Klingbeil and Saskia Esken to sign the coalition agreement. Photograph:
Anadolu/Getty Images
But in a
critical vote on Tuesday morning, expected to be a formality, Merz failed to
secure the necessary backing of 316 and returned only 310 votes in favour,
meaning that 18 of the coalition parties’ parliamentarians failed to vote for
him.
It was the
first time in Germany’s postwar history that this had happened, and it was a
huge personal embarrassment for Merz, who has repeatedly said that, with his
government, “Germany is back” and ready to offer much needed stability in
European politics.
In a second
vote later on Tuesday, however, Merz got the job done, winning 325 votes in the
630-member assembly, with 289 voting against.
Who voted
against?
We still
don’t know. Both votes were held as secret ballots, meaning there is no list of
individual votes. Were the dissenting voices from the SPD or has the former
banker already got enemies within his own conservative alliance?
What happens
now?
The new
chancellor’s team will be keen to put today’s drama behind him as he gets on
with the business of running the country and will be eager to dismiss the
initial defeat as a blip.
Merz has
plans to visit Paris and Warsaw on Wednesday on his first foreign trips,
followed by VE Day events on Thursday and a Nato meeting on Friday. All of
which are chances for him to play the part of the statesman, not the embattled
leader badly bruised before he’s even begun.
What can we
learn from Tuesday’s drama?
We always
knew this was going to be a volatile parliament and today’s vote just
underscored that. Merz got there in the end but his coalition is fragile and,
clearly, support is not solid even among the two governing parties.
The
far-right AfD party, meanwhile, made the most of the chaos, perhaps giving an
indication of how they plan to approach this parliament, in which they are the
biggest opposition party. They have long argued that the “black-red” coalition
would end up failing sooner rather than later.
In a social
media post, the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel said the vote “demonstrates the
weak foundation” on which the coalition is built and later called for a snap
election.
Her party is
already coming top in some polls, partly because of the growing disillusionment
with mainstream parties and frustration with the pace of the government-forming
process.
Any further
gains by the AfD would seriously question the idea the party can be kept behind
the “firewall” that seeks to keep it on the margins of German politics.
But the
party also faces serious reputational and legal problems after Germany’s
domestic intelligence agency formally listed it as an extremist group.
The party
said it would appeal against the designation.
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