Europe
war-games life after Merz
The German
chancellor's foes at home are rejoicing at his political downturn. But those in
Brussels aren't.
By GABRIEL
GAVIN and FRIDA PREUß
https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-contemplates-life-after-friedrich-merz/
Illustration
by Natália Delgado/ POLITICO
October 2,
2026 4:00 am CET
The EU can’t
pretend Friedrich Merz isn’t in trouble any longer.
After a
string of humiliating election losses where the far right has made historic
gains and an internal fight with his own coalition over social care policy, EU
partners are starting to plan for the prospect that the German chancellor could
be ousted — or at least distracted — in the crucial coming months, according to
five diplomats and officials who spoke to POLITICO. They were granted anonymity
to discuss the sensitive talks.
Two European
governments have even held internal sessions to game out what the end of Merz’s
chancellorship would mean for EU policymaking, two of those familiar with the
discussions said.
It’s not a
prospect they take lightly. Merz leads the EU’s largest economy and is the
chief negotiator for wealthy countries seeking to rein in spending in the
bloc’s proposed €2 trillion seven-year budget. He is also a driving force
behind EU efforts to save heavy industry.
“Any debate
about the German chancellor weakens Germany’s role in the EU and in the world,”
said Wilhelm Gebhard, a member of the Bundestag and an official in Merz’s
governing CDU party.
With France
facing its own far-right surge and a presidential election next year that could
hand power to euroskeptic Marine Le Pen, few in Brussels relish the prospect of
Germany, historically the EU’s other major player, turning inwards or derailing
important negotiations.
The
contingency planning, which has seen officials and diplomats brainstorm the
situation, comes after months of mixed signals from Berlin on EU policy,
including car emissions and a proposed social media ban for children. Even if
Merz stays in office, the political turmoil is already complicating Berlin’s
work on the EU’s biggest files.
The
worst-case scenario for Brussels would be a leaderless Germany, or one with a
far-right government. But that is seen as virtually impossible in the short
term, with none of the mainstream players seeking new elections while the
far-right Alternative for Germany party are leading in the polls.
“All
coalition partners know that they have a great deal to lose from early
elections,” said Hannah Neumann, an opposition Green MEP who sits on the
European Parliament’s security and foreign affairs committees. “My expectation,
therefore, is that they will stay together and muddle through.”
While Merz
himself could be forced to resign in the face of his growing unpopularity, he
would be replaced straight away by a successor from either his center-right CDU
party or his center-left coalition partner, the SPD. That should give Brussels
confidence “someone will always be in charge,” said one of the diplomats.
GERMANY
NATIONAL PARLIAMENT POLL OF POLLS
All
3
Years 2
Years 1
Year 6
MonthsSmooth
Kalman
Sep 25,
2026AfD28 %CDU/CSU20 %FDP4 %Greens15 %Left11 %SPD13 %BSW3
%NovDec2026FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOct0 %2 %4 %6 %8 %10 %12 %14 %16 %18 %20 %22
%24 %26 %28 %30 %
For more
polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.
Searching
for a win
Those who
know him insist Merz won’t be distracted when it comes to EU affairs.
“Other
politicians might say ‘OK, I focus less on EU politics.’ For him it’s just the
opposite: It’s an additional incentive to show leadership in Europe,” said a
person familiar with the chancellor’s thinking.
In the
immediate term, Merz’s political weakness at home could make finding compromise
on the bloc’s next seven-year budget harder by pushing the chancellor to double
down on Berlin’s hardline stance in search of a win, a further two diplomats
warned.
As the
leading voice for countries seeking a smaller EU budget, which leaders hope to
agree by year-end, Merz has called for cuts of “hundreds of billions of euros.”
Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands are pressing for
overall reductions, while net recipients such as Poland and Romania want to
protect their share.
Nobody who
could replace him as chancellor “would be able to be more flexible than Merz
is,” said one of the diplomats, but “the risk is he has to show his
self-perceived leadership in Brussels in the hope it will help his standing in
Germany.”
An envoy
from another country said “domestically he is weak [which means] he can’t
compromise” and needs to be seen to score a win by slashing the budget as far
as possible.
But Merz’s
allies say his fight on the world stage is only worthwhile if his coalition
partners play along behind the curtain.
“Strength
comes not just from grand appearances in Brussels, but above all from
stability, reliability and the ability to push through decisions at home. That
is precisely what is lacking at the moment,” said CDU Bundestag member Fabian
Gramling. “Germany’s influence in Europe also depends on how united and capable
of action the federal government appears at home.”
Infighting
and indecision
The
fractious relationship between the CDU and the SPD has already been
undercutting Berlin’s stance on issues of critical national importance.
Throughout
2025, as Brussels renegotiated a planned phaseout of combustion engine cars, in
the face of fierce lobbying from Germany’s influential automotive sector,
German officials and diplomats were unable to articulate a clear position, with
center-right ministers wanting to scrap the green policy and their center-left
counterparts pushing to preserve it.
Ultimately
Merz’s fellow German conservatives in Brussels — Commission President Ursula
von der Leyen and European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber — stepped in to kill
the proposal at the eleventh hour.
Another key
policy area where the coalition struggled to agree a position was on whether
children should be banned from social media, a flagship EU-wide proposal from
von der Leyen. While Merz personally backed the idea at the start of the year,
he and his political allies spent more than six months struggling to land on a
specific age limit to lobby for when von der Leyen was consulting with
partners, according to officials and diplomats involved in the talks.
Even before
the latest crisis, Merz’s domestic troubles were spilling into Brussels at the
highest level. Last year, he surprised fellow EU leaders by demanding that a
summit scheduled to cover geopolitics and other policy files should instead
focus on saving European heavy industry from competition with the U.S. and
China.
Germany lost
around 124,100 industrial jobs last year, according to an analysis by EY, with the government concerned
deindustrialization is helping drive support for Merz’s far-right and far-left
rivals. Other capitals share his concerns, but Merz has insisted industry
should top the agenda at future summits.
But even
inside the chancellor’s own CDU, he has struggled to achieve consensus on what
to do about it. As the Commission plans a push against unfair Chinese trade
practices, Merz’s fellow party member and foreign minister Katherina Reiche is
seen as more protective over the relationship with Beijing, and the German
industrial giants like Volkswagen and BASF that trade with it.
In a speech
on Thursday commemorating 36 years of German reunification — the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the dissolution of communist East Germany —the country’s
ambassador to the EU, Thomas Ossowski, told fellow envoys and officials that
“whenever we celebrate German unity, we celebrate European unity. And we need
this unity [now] more than ever.”
Gabriel
Gavin reported from Brussels. Frida Preuß reported from Berlin. Jordyn Dahl, Eliza Gkritsi and
Carlo Martuscelli contributed to this report.
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