Germany’s new leader is taking on Trump – that won’t be enough to stop the AfD

Friedrich Merz may have staved off the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party for now, but the newly elected chancellor faces a critical test that will have seismic consequences for all of Europe, writes John Kampfner

One picture tells a thousand words. During one of the many TV election debates with a studio audience, Friedrich Merz was confronted by a woman telling him that all Germans wanted was peace, and that peace could only be secured by being nice to that lovely Mr Putin, and that if Germans weren’t nice to that lovely Mr Putin he’d nuke them. I paraphrase, but only slightly.

The Christian Democrat leader – the man now charged with forming a government at a time of immense European insecurity – tried calmly to reason with her. He also wanted his own family to sleep soundly at night, he told her, but for that to happen, Germany needed to help Ukraine more and to increase spending on its own military. The woman kept on shaking her head. Merz was getting more cross, but he stopped mid-stride. As the results in last night’s election show, female voters are wary of his tendency to belligerence.

As the dust settled on an extraordinary campaign – one that started with an economic dispute, morphed into a migration and terrorism debate, and ended up with Donald Trump – Merz acknowledged within minutes of his victory the scale of the problems he faces.

“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week ... it is clear that [his] government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” he said during the obligatory discussion round involving all the party leaders, as he reflected on the anguish and fury that many Germans felt at the verbal onslaught unleashed the weekend before – in Munich, all of places – against Ukraine, democracy and Europe.

He then said, even more startingly: “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

This was quite the turn. An arch-Atlanticist, and a former chair of BlackRock investment house, Merz had been hinting only a few weeks earlier that he would get along just fine with his fellow conservative in the White House; after all, these two fist-pumping macho men are of a similar mind on “wokery”, asylum, slashing bureaucracy and cutting taxes.

Friedrich Merz addresses supporters in Berlin last Sunday (AP)

They may still have that ideological affinity, but the context has changed dramatically. More than Emmanuel Macron, in Washington today, and Keir Starmer, who follows on Thursday, Merz appears to be suggesting from the get-go that he can face down Trump. He will not seek to ingratiate himself. Was he being impetuous (as is his wont), or does this mark a far more assertive Germany on the world stage, and the beginning of European autonomy of the kind that Macron had been begging Olaf Scholz to agree to, but always in vain?

The hapless Scholz will stay on as caretaker, but is being urged to take Merz with him to the various international meetings in the coming weeks, beginning with a special EU summit on Ukraine on 6 March.

AfD supporters at a rally in Erfurt, central Germany, last August (Getty)

Merz has first to create a durable government – one that lasts longer than the disputatious three-party coalition that collapsed last November. Having waited a quarter of a century for this moment, the 69-year-old is keen to get cracking. As he made clear during his victory speech, “the world isn’t waiting for us”. Germany cannot spend months haggling while Ukraine is trampled on. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, reiterated that point, expressing the hope that a new government is formed “as fast as possible, as we really need to move on with decisions at the European level, which requires German participation”.

No party did worse in the election than Scholz’s Social Democrats, the oldest centre-left party in Europe, which collapsed to a historic low. It could draw either of two diametrically opposed conclusions from its defeat – that it should work hard to cut a deal with Merz and play a strong role in the new administration, or that it has spent too much time in government and should regroup in opposition.

Broadly put, its leadership wants the former, while some of its members want the latter. The problem with the opposition argument is that Merz would have no government, Germany would be in crisis, and the far-right AfD might emerge from that even more triumphant than it currently is, having secured one in five votes.

With Merz at the helm, and Boris Pistorius as his deputy, a new coalition might well provide the European strength required at a time of Trumpian disruption. Pistorius, the outgoing defence minister, would have to face down his party’s “salon pacifists”, who for decades have advocated a rapprochement with the Kremlin. He and Merz can perhaps thank the threatening rants of JD Vance and others for concentrating minds.

Activists outside the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin last week (AFP/Getty)

Senior figures in both parties who, for all the sound and fury of the election campaign, get on reasonably well, know that they will stand or fall together. For the CDU, it is a moment of return, of rehabilitation. For the SPD, it is perhaps a last chance, after the mess of the Scholz leadership, to show that they can act responsibly. As long as they deliver an improvement in living standards and law and order, they can keep the AfD at bay.

Yet on economic reform and migration, the devil is in the detail. The SPD hails the introduction of a minimum income guarantee, the Burgergeld, as its main achievement. Merz sees it as a disincentive to work, and will want it radically pared back if not removed. His 15-point “immediate programme” contains other measures that the centre-left will find hard to stomach.

As for migration, the SPD (and the Greens, who also suffered badly) were furious with Merz for flirting with the AfD when he tabled a motion calling for the closure of borders and other restrictions. He insisted that he didn’t want their support, but that his bill was the only way of persuading voters to return from the extreme. His gambit failed and his trustworthiness took a beating; yet he will be determined to salvage large parts of this plan. According to the polls, one of the reasons the SPD was punished was the perception that it was “soft” on asylum.

There will be many twists and turns, both at home and abroad, in the coming weeks as this drama unfolds. The strongest cause for optimism that Merz will prevail and form a strong government is the prospect of the opposite: that Germany falls into the hands of a far right in the pocket of Putin and Trump. That prospect is too terrifying to contemplate.