Germany Has a New Center-Right Chancellor

The conservative Friedrich Merz was sworn in last week as Germany’s Chancellor, after his center-right bloc of parties formed a coalition government with the leading center-left party that had led the previous government. Merz’s Christian Democrats and their conservative Bavarian allies had won the most votes and seats in the parliamentary elections a month ago, but were short of a majority. By forming a coalition with the center-left, the conservatives thereby are keeping the main far-right (neo-Nazi) anti-migrant pro-Russian party out of power. The new Chancellor is pro-European Union and pro-Ukrainian. After long favoring the transatlantic alliance with the United States, Merz advocates for greater European self-reliance and stronger security, particularly through the EU, for which Germany has the largest economy and thus to which the central European State is its largest contributor, because of the unreliability of the Trump Administration. Germany is an ally of the U.S. as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Germany joins Poland, Austria and the EU in being governed by a center-right party leading a coalition that kept out both the far right and far left, despite gains in votes for their populist candidates, as the majority of voters opposes the two extremes.