Germany’s Friedrich Merz has formally become chancellor at the second attempt, hours after an unprecedented defeat signaled deep discontent within his coalition.
In a hastily organized session on Tuesday afternoon, 325 lawmakers voted to approve his appointment – more than the 316 he required.
Merz, who won an election in February and unveiled a ruling coalition last month, had fallen six votes short earlier in the day, a stunning setback that marked another twist in a tortuous period of uncertainty for the country.
He was finally approved as chancellor by Germany’s president and sworn in at the Bundestag on Tuesday afternoon. But his tenure will start on an unstable footing: The day’s votes not only revealed reluctance inside his coalition, but gave the insurgent far-right AfD party a new opportunity to ruffle the political establishment.
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party won an election in February, but failed to pick up enough seats to govern outright – an outcome that is commonplace in Germany’s diverse political environment.
He last month announced he would form a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a rare fusing of Germany’s two establishment groups that ensured the AfD – which came second in the February poll – would remain locked out of power. It extended the so-called “firewall,” a blockade against far-right groups that German politicians have kept in place since after World War II, but which has become increasingly tenuous.
The coalition has 328 seats in total, and the vote to approve a chancellor is usually a formality; never before in modern German history had a chancellor-in-waiting failed to win. But on Tuesday, on what was set to be a day of celebration, Merz’s future was briefly plunged into uncertainty.
His defeat, which had been entirely unexpected, came after weeks of attacks against his bloc from the AfD and from the increasingly intrusive Trump administration. And it exposed the early cracks within a marriage of convenience between the CDU and the SPD.
Because the vote was held by secret ballot, it was not immediately clear – and might never be known – who had defected from Merz’s camp.
Complicated in-tray
It is a rocky start for a leader who has promised to pursue an aggressive agenda.
Merz won a two-thirds parliamentary majority in March to change Germany’s constitutional “debt brake,” a mechanism to limit government borrowing. He intends to give renewed impetus to a 2022 German security policy change dubbed “Zeitenwende” – “turning point” in English – that was initiated by outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz and would see Berlin turbocharge its defense spending in an effort to modernize an ageing military.
That push was given greater urgency after US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened to end American support for Ukraine and withdraw security guarantees for Europe. Moments after he won Tuesday’s second vote, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought to keep the effort at the top of his agenda.
“We sincerely hope that Germany will grow even stronger and that we’ll see more German leadership in European and transatlantic affairs,” Zelensky posted on X. “This is especially important with the future of Europe at stake — and it will depend on our unity.”
US State Department congratulated Merz, saying it would “continue to work with Germany and its next government to ensure the security of the United States and Europe.”
Merz will have to deal with disruption from the far-right AfD, which came second in February’s election and is now topping some opinion polls. The group quickly pounced on the parliamentary uncertainty on Tuesday morning, calling for fresh elections. “We are ready for government responsibility. And we call for common sense to prevail,” its leader Alice Weidel said. “Merz should resign immediately.”
It is a complicated in-tray for the new leader, who was was born in 1955 into a conservative, Catholic family in in central Germany, and who joined the CDU’s youth wing while still in school. He entered politics full-time in 1989, when he was elected to the European Parliament at the age of 33.
After serving one term as an MEP, Merz, a married father-of-three, was elected to the Bundestag – Germany’s parliament – and established himself as a leader in financial policy. In 2003, he famously argued that German tax rules should be simple enough to calculate on the back of a beer coaster.
A feud with former leader Angela Merkel led him to leave politics, and Merz worked for years as a lawyer in the private sector, before returning to take control of the party in 2022.
CNN’s Claudia Otto, Stephanie Halasz and Sophie Tanno contributed reporting
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