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Germany Elections: Future Chancellor Plans To Counter The Kremlin And Support Ukraine

  • 25.02.2025, 8:53

Friedrich Merz may create a new European military alliance.

Three and a half months after the collapse of the coalition, Germany elected a new parliament. The results show that the CDU-CSU bloc and its candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz, should form a coalition. The result of the SPD of the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz was the weakest in the history of elections to the Bundestag. At the same time, the right-wing pro-Russian Alternative for Germany (AfD) doubled its performance.

The next federal government, which is likely to be headed by Friedrich Merz, faces serious challenges. He needs to adopt a budget, agree with European partners on how to respond to the challenges posed by the new US administration. The main one is how to confront Russia and help Ukraine at a time when it became clear that the United States under President Donald Trump can no longer be relied on in these areas.

The main conclusions from the early elections to the Bundestag of Germany are stated in the material OBOZ.UA.

Friedrich Merz – hope for Ukraine

The victory of the CDU-CSU and the fact that Friedrich Merz, the conservative candidate, will become the next German Chancellor is a positive factor for Ukraine, because the conservatives' program, for example, says that Ukraine should continue to provide "comprehensive" assistance and "support Kyiv's course towards joining the EU and NATO."

Actually, personally, Merz has a clear reputation as an ardent supporter of Ukraine in the war against the Russian Federation. He was one of the first German politicians to visit Ukraine after the start of the Russian full-scale invasion. In early May 2022, having arrived in Kyiv, Merz met with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, and also examined the consequences of the Russian occupation in the Kyiv region.

Merz constantly criticized the Scholz government for being too sluggish, as for him, and Berlin's insufficient support for Ukraine. For example, according to Merz, Germany cannot "stand aside" in the issue of supplying Ukraine with Western combat aircraft. Merz has repeatedly called on Scholz to provide Ukrainians with long-range Taurus missiles, which he plans to do when he becomes Chancellor, as well as to strengthen support for the Ukrainian Defense Forces with other important types of weapons.

“Merz is one of the Germans who has the best connections in the US and treats this country very well,” analysts said a few weeks ago. So, the future Chancellor not so long ago vowed to make "deals" with Trump. He suggested that Germany win Trump's favor by buying American F-35 fighter jets and increasing defense spending so that Germany would consistently exceed NATO's spending target by 2% of GDP. However, the speech of representatives of the new administration in Munich and the latest statements of Donald Trump on Russia and Ukraine have radically changed his vision.

Today, Friedrich Merz says he wants Europe to gain full independence from the United States. Merz put forward the idea of creating a new European defense union instead of NATO, including nuclear cooperation with France and the United Kingdom. He is resolute about Russia, but he seems equally determined to oppose Trump.

“We must prepare for the fact that Donald Trump will no longer fully fulfill his obligations to help under the NATO treaty. Germany should negotiate with France and Britain to use nuclear weapons to protect the territory of Ukraine against the backdrop of a change in US rhetoric, "the future German Chancellor believes.

According to him, the French authorities have repeatedly appealed to the German government with a proposal to discuss nuclear guarantees for Ukraine, but so far Berlin has not responded to this. France and the UK have their own nuclear weapons, but the potential of the two countries is several times less than Russia's nuclear reserves. American nuclear weapons are stationed in Germany and do not have their own, but in the event of war, Luftwaffe bombers can use US nuclear shells.

Merz seems to have grasped the threat Trump poses and is signaling that under his government, Germany will fundamentally change its foreign policy. This is good news for Ukraine, which in recent weeks the new US administration and Trump personally intimidated as much as they could.

New coalition – all is well for Ukraine

Merz will soon begin the daunting task of forming a new German government with the SPD or the Greens – or perhaps both. He wants to form a new government as soon as possible.

“The world is not waiting for us, and it is not waiting for long coalition negotiations,” Merz is sure. He has already told potential coalition allies that he will not tolerate any delays or excessive bargaining, as Germany faces too many crises on many fronts to procrastinate.

After the scandalous collapse of the three-party “traffic light” coalition of the Scholz government, major parties will need to demonstrate to voters — and their American critics – that they can create a resilient and strong government that can demonstrate that Europe matters.

According to the results, the alliance between the CDU-CSU and the SPD has the best chances of obtaining a majority. The likely coalition that Merz will assemble has every chance of agreeing on a tougher line of support for Ukraine (and strengthening European security) than Germany has managed in recent years.

The second party in Merz's likely coalition is the SPD of Olaf Scholz, who called himself "Chancellor of Peace", not wanting to escalate from the Russian Federation. But Scholz said he would not be part of the SPD team in any coalition. This opens up prospects for the current Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, another supporter of the hard line against Moscow.

Scholz Failure

The Social Democratic Party suffered a catastrophic defeat in this election. Its support dropped to its historic low of 16%, and Scholz's party took only third place. The decline was also demonstrated by the rest of the parties from the ruling "traffic light" coalition, which collapsed in November last year after the release of the Free Democrats. The Greens received about 13%, and the Free Democrats did not enter the Bundestag at all (they have less than 5%).

In this election, Olaf Scholz tried to portray himself as the "Chancellor of Peace" and stressed that he was pursuing a sensible policy. While Merz has long wanted to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, the current chancellor still refuses to do so. Scholz's party members claim that he observed the "middle course" between the "hawks" and "pigeons", seeking to help Ukraine without provoking Russia or upsetting the too pacifist part of German society. But during this policy, he managed to alienate almost everyone: both those who believe that he should do more and those who want peace with the Kremlin.

Scholz continued his "play" with a "peacekeeping call" to the Russian dictator Putin, after which he stressed how "adamantly" he and no one else guaranteed and guaranteed that Germany would not make the wrong decisions in this "conflict". It wasn’t working.

Far-Right Increases Popularity

The far-right AfD party won 20.8% of the vote, not only doubling its result compared to 2021, but becoming the second strongest party in the Bundestag for the first time. It should be added that the AfD in East Germany received an even more impressive result – about 30% of the votes, ahead of the other parties.

There is a great threat that if Merz does not justify trust, the next time the ultra-right is guaranteed to come to power in Germany. AfD leader Alice Weidel, in a fit of euphoria, already predicts that her party will become the strongest in the next election.

“We have achieved a historic result. I predict: we will not have to wait another four years, we will overtake the CDU."

Alternative for Germany advocates the cessation of support for Ukraine and the resumption of gas imports from Russia. Alice Weidel said that the AfD wants to establish “very good relations” with Russia. She also noted that she wants to achieve the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation, because they harm Germany, which has ceased to be competitive.

On the positive side, it can be noted that no one in Germany is yet planning to create a coalition with the ultra-right, as well as the fact that another party from among the Friends of Putin – the The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, could not enter the Bundestag.

Russian-American factor

Russia wouldn’t be Russia if it didn’t meddle in the German election. Thus, Internet disinformation networks associated with the Russian Federation actively conducted a campaign to disseminate warnings about fake terrorist threats in Germany, trying to sow fear among the population and reduce turnout in the elections. Bots also spread false rumors aimed at discrediting the CDU/CSU Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz and promoted positive information about the pro-Russian far-right AfD.

In parallel with the Kremlin, another destabilizing factor has appeared in Europe – the new administration of the US President. US Vice President JD Vance met with the head of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Alice Weidel, who was perceived in Germany as uncovered support from the Trump administration. Earlier, Vance criticized many European countries at the Munich Security Conference regarding the harassment, in his opinion, of far right political forces that they do not want to allow to come to power.

Billionaire and global oligarch Elon Musk has repeatedly touted the AfD on X and insulted almost all top German politicians, especially Olaf Scholz. In January, he also spoke at a virtual rally in support of the party, where he said that “it's good to be proud of German culture, German values and not lose them in some kind of multiculturalism that dilutes in many ways,” which was interpreted as a reference to the country's Nazi past.

The coalition will be pro-Ukrainian, and the far right does not yet pose a great threat

The main result of this election is that most likely there will be a coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, which is positive for Ukraine. At the same time, the current Chancellor Scholz has already stated that he will not be further in politics, that is, he will not be a minister in the new government – this opinion was expressed by Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for East European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Relations, in an exclusive comment to OBOZ.UA.

According to the expert, now the most interesting question is which factions of the Social Democrats will be represented in the new government. Because there are different people there. For example, Mützenich or Steigner are some kind of pro-Russian politicians. On the other hand, there are more determined politicians, like Defence Minister Boris Pistorius or Social Democratic Party leader Lars Klingbeil. If they are in the new government, then it will probably be even a pro-Ukrainian government than the current government. As for the future coalition, the Social Democrats, and the Christian Democrats, seem to have enough MPs now to create a bipartisan coalition that will be more stable because of this.

“What Merz recently said about supporting Ukraine, Germany's leadership role in the EU, reducing dependence on the United States, sounds very good, but the big question is whether he has enough resources and support to implement his ideas. That is, he is pro-European, pro-Ukrainian, he is for supplying missiles to Ukraine, but for this he will need public support in Germany and other European countries of the European Union. And this is still an open question for me,” says Andreas Umland.

As for the defeat of the representatives of the previous government, according to Umland, the Germans were very disappointed in the representatives of the political forces of the Scholz coalition. To this was added a personal factor. By the way, the leader of the Free Democrats Lindner is quite unpopular in Germany. The same is true for the Social Democrats, because Scholz is a surprisingly unpopular politician in Germany today.

"As for the AfD result, Germany is distinguished by the fact that this far-right, right-wing radical party is isolated and stigmatized in the context of German politics. This sets the situation apart from other countries. For example, in Austria, in Italy, they create a coalition in power. Therefore, even if the AfD receives even more percent of the vote in the next election, it will, I think, remain an isolated party for the time being. So far, this does not seem to me to be a fundamental problem for German democracy. This is a problem, and this party will now have a strong voice in parliament. They will have a large faction, but until the AfD is part of both the federal government and the regional governments too, ”stated Andreas Umland.

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