German chancellor Friedrich Merz planned his summer holiday so that he would wake up on his 100th day in office in his holiday home overlooking Bavaria’s glittering Tegernsee lake.
Instead, when midnight struck on day 100 last Wednesday, Merz was back in the Berlin chancellery in what his spokesman insisted wasn’t a crisis meeting.
No crisis and nothing to see: just a mutinous coalition partner, furious political allies and disastrous poll numbers.
Fewer than one in three Germans are happy with the Merz-lead coalition’s debut while his centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is, in one poll, in second place behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on 26 per cent support.
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Passing the symbolic 100-day mark, some political analysts already see a pattern with Germany’s not-so-new chancellor: stumbling into power only on the second vote on May 6th after an unprecedented backbencher revolt.
No one knows for sure who withheld their support in the secret ballot, but many suspect it was conservative CDU members protesting at their leader’s breathtaking post-election U-turn.
Rather than consolidate the budget, as the CDU promised voters in February’s election campaign, Merz backed plans to borrow at least €100 billion for infrastructure and defence investment.
Seven weeks later, CDU rebels struck again by refusing to back a constitutional court nominee of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Compounding the mess, Merz and his Bundestag officials realised the scale of the looming backbench revolt just hours before the scheduled parliamentary vote, usually a formality after backroom negotiations.
As a Wildean journalist joked at a recent reception: to fumble one key parliamentary vote is bad luck; to fumble two seems careless.
While the court candidate eventually withdrew, lingering SPD mistrust of its coalition partner has compounded coalition rows over everything from broken promises on energy price cuts to pension boosts for stay-at-home mothers.
As a result, a key Merz campaign promise – to end the public squabbling of the previous administration – has come to nothing. Not a good look for Merz who, with no government experience, presented himself to voters as a safe pair of lawyerly hands.
Sensing the grim mood, Merz officials fanned out this week to insist in interviews that the federal government’s record is better than its reputation. They point to a new tough line on migration, with tighter border checks and a new return regime for failed asylum seekers.
So far Merz has seemed more sure-footed on the international stage, initiating this week’s video conference with Donald Trump ahead of his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin that secured key assurances for Ukraine.
Merz texts Trump regularly since their Oval office meeting in June, when the president, while touching his German visitor’s knee, called him “a good man to deal with, difficult to deal with”.
Whether Ukraine talks or US trade threats, however, Merz knows his room for influence is limited.
Unlike his dramatic pivot on Israel a week ago, responding to its plans to occupy all of Gaza with a ban on exports of arms that could be used there.
The shift has infuriated senior CDU figures, including key CDU state premiers, but brings Merz in line with German public opinion, where 75 per cent oppose all weapons exports to Israel.
When Merz returns from his interrupted Bavarian holiday, analysts suggest the chancellor needs to shift his attention back to domestic policy.
[ Germans told to work more, as citizens make most of holidaysOpens in new window ]
“Merz is a proactive foreign policy chief delivering positive and coherent messages, but the economy is still flat and things don’t look so good on the domestic front,” said Prof Klaus Schubert, political scientist at the University of Münster.
