Friedrich Merz wants German voters to embrace him as a political Flash Gordon: an unlikely hero with just 45 days to save Germany.
That, at least, was the expectation on Friday when the centre-right Christian Democratic Union leader presented his 12-page “Agenda 2030″ plan to revive Europe’s largest – and sickest – economy after the February 23rd election.
The paper’s overall aim is to stimulate growth from a second year of effective zero – the lowest among G7 countries – back to 2 per cent.
Measures include income tax breaks for employees, lower corporate tax and investment relief for companies, and less red tape for building physical and digital infrastructure.
To cross-finance the stimulus measures, the CDU promises significant cuts to Germany’s €50 billion welfare budget, including benefits cuts to those who refuse job offers.
After the premature collapse of Olaf Scholz’s unpopular centre-liberal “traffic light” coalition in November, the Merz plan was given a muted response on Friday even from his own party members.
One reason is two post-Christmas polls showing the CDU static on 31-32 per cent support, while a third showed the party slipping down to 29 per cent.
“Given the traffic-light disaster, the CDU should be at 50 per cent in polls, but we’re not,” said Christoph Ahlhaus, a CDU member and president of a leading lobby group for small and medium enterprises. “The CDU has a lot of ideas but nothing on implementation or costings. Friedrich Merz has to win over trust if he wants to be chancellor, and he has a lot of work ahead of him.”
Such public criticisms from within the CDU are unusual, particularly in election season, and reflect lingering doubts about Merz as leader.
Merz, a 69-year-old millionaire investment banker and one-time rival of Angela Merkel, returned to politics after her departure but secured the CDU leadership only on his third attempt.
Despite leading in polls, Germany’s snap election has robbed Merz of a crucial six months to position himself as chancellor-in-waiting. To jump-start that process, he visited the grave of the CDU’s first leader, Konrad Adenauer, this week and delivered a keynote address in the fabled Petersberg government guest house above the Rhine, near Bonn.
“The 2025 election is a direction-setting poll, almost like 1949 again in terms of fundamental future political decisions,” said Merz in a 35-minute speech that was light on detail but heavy on the obvious – “We are in a time of change” – and pathos: “The history of this country doesn’t write itself, it is written.”
[ Germany awaits political duel between Scholz and MerzOpens in new window ]
But by whom? The CDU leader’s more populist Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is piling pressure on Merz to rule out a post-election alliance with the Greens.
The CSU is polling steadily on 14-15 per cent and is largely unscathed from its alliance with Scholz, but remains a neuralgic point for many conservative voters who see the party as ideologically extreme.
Another challenge it faces is the surge of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to second place in polls, in one just nine points behind the CDU.
In a live-stream on Thursday on his Twitter/X platform, billionaire Elon Musk urged German voters to back the AfD, “or things are going to get much worse for Germany”.
Merz has ruled out any co-operation with the AfD, but critics see its popularity behind a rightward drift of CDU policies.
For instance Merz has courted controversy for suggesting that dual citizens who commit a crime in Germany should lose their German passport – reviving memories of how Nazi Germany stripped tens of thousands of Germans of their citizenship.
Centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) strategists have pounced on the passport remark as the first – and, for them, hopefully not the last – Merz gaffe of the campaign.
“In my opinion, this is another very dangerous populist statement,” said Matthias Miersch, SPD general secretary. “Citizenship is something you can’t play with.”
Germany’s outgoing ruling party has an uphill battle ahead. It lies in third place in the polls with 14-16 per cent support – half that of the CDU/CSU and some 10 points behind its 2021 winning result.
The SPD hopes to win back voters with the promise of guarantees on bread-and-butter issues: pensions, growth and take-home pay rather than tax giveaways for top earners and companies.
The SPD’s plan to revive the economy will be cheaper and more effective, it says, with tax write-offs for companies that invest – or manufacture – more in Germany.
“If we want to maintain our performance for the future, then the right course must be set now,” said Scholz, hoping for a second term as SPD chancellor.
Despite the short election campaign, a host of variables and unknowns make it difficult to predict the outcome. The fate of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) remains unclear, while the populist vote could be split between the AfD and the new left-conservative BSW alliance.
The latter’s pacifist campaign platform could lose relevance with any ceasefire in the Ukraine-Russia war.
For long-time Berlin watchers, the most likely electoral outcome is a return to the Merkel era with another CDU-SPD grand coalition.
“There’s no game changer in the Merz plan and no major political shift for the CDU is likely,” said Gero Neugebauer, a Berlin-based political scientist. “That means the SPD remains its closest political ally.”
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