German conservatives were expecting more from Merz's election victory

Telegraph

26-02-2025

The beer was flowing and the applause was loud for the victorious Friedrich Merz at CDU headquarters in Berlin on election night.
But the chancellor-in-waiting's triumph was not all it seemed, and the party faithful knew it.
'It's muted,' a diplomatic source at the celebrations told The Telegraph, 'they wanted more.'
Germany's conservatives won a 28.52 per cent share in an election with the highest turnout since reunification in 1990. They would have hoped for more than 30 per cent or even 35.
Angela Merkel's worst election result in 16 years in power leading the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) was 32.9 per cent.
After she stepped down, the party under Armin Laschet won only 24.1 per cent in 2021, leading to Mr Merz's political comeback as leader.
The scale of a win matters in German politics, where outright majorities by a single party simply do not happen.
Coalitions must be built between parties, with high vote share translating to greater negotiation leverage. It also grants more flexibility in picking and choosing coalition partners.
The SPD (Social Democratic Party) posted its worst-ever result, after winning the last election and forming a coalition without the conservatives.
The centre-Left party came third with 16.41 per cent, behind the far-Right AfD, which Mr Merz has excluded from negotiations to form a government that he wants ready by Easter.
The SPD lost 1.8 million voters to the CDU – but others turned to the hard-Left or the Putin-friendly AfD (Alternative for Germany), which had its best-ever results and will be the main opposition.
Mr Merz will need to strike a deal with the SPD but it will exact a heavy price for becoming the junior partner in the grand coalition between Germany's big beasts.
The man poised to be the next chancellor has said that the 'red-black coalition' is 'exactly what we want'.
Germany's economy is in dire trouble. Mr Merz has promised the medicine of cuts to social programmes such as welfare, and a bonfire of red tape, to reboot it.
He promised tax cuts for high earners and business to boost German competitiveness and gave warning that reforms of Germany's generous state pensions might be necessary.
All of this is anathema to the SPD, which accused Mr Merz of weakening the 'firewall' against the AfD when he accepted the far-Right's support for a parliamentary resolution on tougher migration rules before the election.
On Monday, the SPD fired a warning shot, saying it would try to blunt Mr Merz's manifesto pledges.
Klara Geywitz, the SPD's deputy leader, said: 'Friedrich Merz's CDU has presented an election program that would create additional billions in gaps in the already strained budget.'
'In this respect, we are at the beginning of a very difficult process, the outcome of which is still open in my view,' she added.
The parties are closer on defence, but finding the money for the military and economy and to build up defence will be a huge and controversial challenge.
Mr Merz will be under pressure to reform Germany's constitutional debt brake, which limits public spending.
But that is politically explosive, as Olaf Scholz, the outgoing chancellor, found when his efforts to change the rule led to the fall of his coalition government.
Jana Puglierin, of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said: 'Both parties want to continue supporting Ukraine militarily, financially and humanitarianly.'
She added: 'Nevertheless, less will change here than many think or hope.'