The Chancellor is sliding deeper into the crisis - also because he is unable to free himself from his role as a decisive actor. How long can this continue?
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Friedrich Merz is criticized for poor polls, election defeats and a lack of authority.
The Chancellor is sliding deeper into the crisis - also because he is unable to free himself from his role as a decisive actor. How long can this continue?
From ZEIT No. 39/2026
Friedrich Merz is lucky. And it's lucky that there are two state elections on the Sunday after next and that's why everyone is keeping quiet for now. But even after that he has little to fear. Because: Merz has now reached a stage in which the crisis, which he himself is constantly exacerbating, is stabilizing him. The CDU and the government as a whole are in such a bad state that no one is likely to want to take over his position. Just don't shake the gate of the Chancellery, because then everything could collapse. The government. The old party system. In the end the whole beautiful republic, who knows?
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