The flag of the European Union flies outside the German Parliament in Berlin.
23/02/2025
2 min

Friedrich Merz's time has come. It was a late and weak victory. The result of deep discontent with the tripartite government led by a social democracy that has suffered the most resounding defeat in its history, and a conservative wave of transatlantic reach. "It is a great day for Germany and for the United States under the leadership of a gentleman called Donald J. Trump," the American president said – speaking of him in the third person – and taking credit for the defeat of the SPD. Paradoxically, a Merz who declares himself an admirer of Ronald Reagan, and who has always been close to the United States, will have to lead the country of the European Union that could be most damaged by an eventual tariff war of the Trump administration against the Europeans.

There are urgent political, economic and security issues on the table. The world is no longer waiting for Germany or the Union, he acknowledged. Friedrich Merz after declaring himself the winner. But the times of German politics have come into conflict with the acceleration of global transformations.

German journalist Ali Aslan said a few days ago at a meeting at CIDOB in Barcelona Germany is "an analogue power in a digital world". A power in the midst of an existential crisis, which has left Europe's leading economy trapped in the weaknesses of its own model and in energy, export and security dependencies that have hampered German and European competitiveness.

Trump's tariff threat, Elon Musk's campaign emergence, the wave of transatlantic far-right movements, the urgency to try to have its own voice in the immediate future of the war in Ukraine and the different positions of German political forces on China have made these. But the polls sentenced the weakness of the traditional parties and a horizon with another weak coalition government. The risk and temptation to continue betting on short-term stability loom over the negotiations that are now opening in German politics. Today's fragmented and Eurosceptic EU is also the result of the limits of the Grand Coalition Europe that has done so much to boost the far right in these years of a series of crises, widening inequalities and fuelling a sense of uncertainty in an increasingly frightened population.

But even if the Grand Coalition returns to Berlin, Merz's victory marks the end of the Merkel era. Today's Germany is no longer the hegemonic power of an EU overwhelmed and transformed from within by new political majorities that will today celebrate the good results of the Alternative for Germany. But in a Europe that is increasingly alone in the world, Brussels expects and needs German leadership.

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