Germany’s Merz calls for European unity and ‘independence’ from US
Germany’s likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, emphasised a priority to strengthen Europe in order to achieve “independence” from the USA, following his center-right alliance’s victory in the parliamentary elections held amid shifting relations between the two sides of the Atlantic.
Friedrich Merz criticised the “ultimately outrageous” comments coming from Washington during the campaign, drawing a comparison between the US and Russia.
“For me, the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can achieve real independence from the USA step by step,” Merz said on Sunday.
“We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now is to achieve unity in Europe. It is possible to create unity in Europe,” he added.
He even ventured to ask whether the next summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which has underpinned Europe’s security for decades, would still see “NATO in its current form.”
Merz, who has no previous experience in office, is set to take charge with Europe’s largest economy ailing, its society split over migration, and its security caught between a confrontational U.S. and an assertive Russia and China.
The 69-year-old faces lengthy coalition negotiations after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged to a historic second place in a fractured vote following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way alliance.
His conservative CDU/CSU bloc came in first place with 28.6%, ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany with 20.8%, its best-ever result, according to provisional results.
Mainstream parties, however, rule out working with the AfD, a party that is monitored by German security services on suspicion of extremism but has been endorsed by U.S. figures including billionaire Elon Musk.
That means Merz will have to negotiate with Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) to form a coalition in talks that are likely to take months following a bruising campaign that highlighted policy differences.
Merz will, however, not have to rely on support from the Greens for an outright parliamentary majority, after the new BSW party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht, a former leader of the Left party, just missed the 5% threshold required to enter the lower house.
