Have the article read by OpenAI (Beta). Please note that AI translations may take some time to process.Berlin (dpa) – Germany heads to the polls in just 10 days, with conservative leader Friedrich Merz widely expected to replace Olaf Scholz as the country’s next chancellor.
Amid a second consecutive year of economic recession, a highly-charged debate on migration policy and disputes over aid to Ukraine, the vote on February 23 is sure to have massive consequences for domestic German policy.
But Germany’s direction is also central to the fate of the wider European Union.
Scholz’s squabbling coalition faced strong criticism for failing to provide much-needed leadership in Brussels over the past three years.
If Merz’s centre-right alliance maintains its 10-point lead in the polls and takes power in Berlin, what can we expect from his administration at the European level?
Stronger ties with France?
Since the days of Adenauer and de Gaulle, the personal relationship between German and French leaders has been crucial to the project of European reconciliation, cooperation and integration.
With the EU facing a major conflict on its doorstep, a potential trade war with the United States under Donald Trump and economic stagnation, the Franco-German tandem has never been more vital to the bloc’s success in a challenging global landscape.
Yet ties between Paris and Berlin have frayed in recent years due to a combination of frosty personal relations between Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, and policy disputes over issues ranging from trade and nuclear energy to the war in Ukraine.
“The French are so frustrated by what has happened – or not happened – in these past three years that they are just looking for change,” said Jacob Ross, an expert on Franco-German relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
Paris would be happy with “anybody other than Scholz,” Ross told dpa.
And Merz could be just the man to restore ties with France and fire up the German engine in Brussels.
Defence: Cooperation on Ukraine, disconnect on funding
The key source of recent discord between France and Germany has been support for Ukraine in its three-year conflict with Russia, with Macron slamming Scholz over his reluctance to deliver long-range weapons to Kiev.
A new German administration under Merz could prove more hawkish on Russia, and closer to the French position.
The CDU/CSU leader has promised to equip Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, claiming in a debate with Scholz last week that he “would have delivered” them to Kiev already.
He has further signalled a willingness for Europe to organize aid for Ukraine more independently of the US, especially with Trump back in the White House.
This would be a “major change,” argued Ross, with Scholz having previously acted in lock-step with former president Joe Biden.
However, in one crucial aspect, a Merz government would be likely to follow Scholz’s line.
Despite widespread agreement in Paris and Brussels that Europe must bolster defence capabilities in response to the threat from Moscow, the current German administration has steadfastly refused to authorize joint borrowing.
Merz is yet to strictly rule out such a measure, but his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has long insisted on maintaining Germany’s strict constitutional rules on government borrowing, known as the debt brake.
With a special German military fund set to run out by 2028, Merz is due to face a serious challenge in maintaining spending at the current level of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in line with the NATO target.
There are also indications that the NATO guidelines could be hiked this year, with Trump calling for the target to reach 5%.
Loosening financial restrictions to issue European defence bonds, just as German defence spending balloons, would be one step too far for Merz, said Ross.
Climate and migration policy: A shift to the right?
If funding for defence could prove a stumbling block in his relations with Europe, Merz’s commitments to reverse German climate policies and reform migration laws could become a serious complication – unless he can exploit a continent-wide shift to the right.
Merz has taken aim at a number of EU policies passed during his party colleague Ursula von der Leyen‘s first term as president of the European Commission, including her flagship Green Deal, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
The CDU wants to boost Germany’s flagging economy by cutting red tape linked to EU sustainability rules, and has pledged to reverse the EU ban on the sale of carbon-emitting vehicles by 2035.
Von der Leyen, for her part, is aware of the backlash against EU policies and is due to propose an omnibus bill of reforms to simplify sustainability regulations in 2025, while further changes to migration policy are also in the works.
Merz has proposed controversial measures such as introducing permanent controls at Germany’s borders and granting police powers to turn back all migrants, even those claiming asylum, which would be a clear violation of current EU rules.
It is conceivable, however, that Brussels would commit to new solutions to irregular migration, seeking to preempt unilateral German action and satisfy leaders across the right of the European political spectrum, from Donald Tusk in Warsaw to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni.
There is indeed “political appetite in Europe to harden the rules on migration,” York Albrecht, a researcher at Berlin’s Institut für Europäische Politik (Institute for European Politics), told dpa.
Reports have emerged in recent days that the European Commission could even be willing to support so-called “return hubs” along the lines of Italy’s facilities in Albania.
An under-pressure European Union could thus be ready for renewed German leadership under Merz – even if, or precisely because, it entails a marked shift to the right. (13. February)
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