German voters were left unimpressed by the first television debate of chancellor Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz, the centre-right politician who wants his job after the February 23rd federal election.
Civilised but bland was the viewer verdict on Sunday evening, with neither politician scoring any significant points over the other in their first 90-minute television encounter.
This was not the result Scholz needed. Two weeks before polling day, his Social Democratic Party (SPD) is trailing in third place with just 15 per cent support – half that of the Merz Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
After recent tensions over migration policy, the lack of sparks on Sunday evening underlined the likelihood of another CDU-lead grand coalition with the SPD – similar to three of the four Merkel administrations.
“The debate simulated a conflict which does not exist,” argued the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine daily on Monday morning.
With Germany in a third year of flat growth, the business Handelsblatt newspaper described as “shocking the lack of ideas to secure our prosperity”.
“The USA and China are currently distributing the prosperity of the future,” it said, pointing to artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics and quantum computing.
“And that should be us.”
Germany’s Tagesschau news portal said the debate, broadcast by its own ARD network, was “in parts pretty boring”.
Asked who performed better, 37 per cent of viewers chose Scholz while 34 per cent Merz – and 29 per cent saw no notable difference between the two, increasing grand coalition speculation.
Viewers saw the two candidates drawn when it came to the detail of the debate – mostly migration, touching briefly on the flat economy, Donald Trump and Ukraine.
Scholz was seen as more pleasant (46 per cent) and, after three years in office, more credible (42 per cent). Merz, a political veteran who has never held government office, polled weaker in the categories pleasant (27 per cent) and competence (31 per cent).
The early part of the debate was dominated by migration policy, the campaign’s dominant issue after a failed asylum seeker was arrested after a fatal double stabbing.
Two weeks ago Merz led a parliamentary push for tougher migration policy, which attracted support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Scholz denounced as unworkable and illegal non-binding proposals that included refusing asylum seekers at the German border, saying: “How dumb can you be?”
He said the CDU leader’s tactics had weakened his so-called “firewall” policy to isolate Germany’s far-right AfD – and boosted its support to 21 per cent, second place in polls. “I’m seriously concerned you would consider a coalition with the AfD after the election,” added Scholz.
That prompted heated denials from the CDU leader, who insisted “there will be no co-operation”.
Instead Merz attacked the Scholz government, saying its claims to have tackled asylum were contradicted by how support for the anti-migration AfD had doubled its popularity in the last three years. “You don’t live on this planet, what you’re saying is a fairytale,” he said.
On Germany’s economic performance, Scholz remained on the defensive. After just over three years in power – during which the economy has remained flat – he insisted: “I’m not the one who invaded Ukraine, I’m not the one who stopped gas deliveries. That was [Vladimir] Putin.”
The SPD chancellor warned that the Merz go-it-alone migration proposals – pushing back people at German borders – would undermine calls for European solidarity in a trade war with the Trump administration.
“We will soon have to rely on the whole of Europe if we get tariff policies from the American government,” he said, “which in many cases would be directed against Germany and which we can only reject together?”
If he remained as chancellor – unlikely, given the polls – Scholz said the EU “could act within the hour” on Trump tariffs.
Merz said tariffs were a legitimate political tool. “Strong Europeans, strong response,” he said. “Talk with the Americans on equal footing and tell them clearly what’s possible and what’s not.”
Both disagreed with Trump plans for US control of the Gaza Strip. Scholz said that, given the scale of suffering and destruction there, the idea was a “scandal” that is “against international law, it’s shocking”.
Merz agreed that the idea was “irritating”, but said it was important to “wait and see what is meant seriously” with a US president whose only predictable quality was his unpredictability.
Both candidates remained vague when it came to maintaining high defence spending to meet Nato alliance targets, currently met by a one-off spending fund that will be exhausted next year.
Pressed on how to maintain – or even increase – defence investment, Merz conceded this would not be possible “without reforming the debt brake” – a legal instrument that limits net borrowing to 0.35 per cent of gross domestic product.
On Ukraine, neither candidate presented new proposals, with Scholz insisting he would maintain his ban on long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv and saying it would be “very good if this war were to end”.
He said it “remains to be seen” whether peace can be achieved, ahead of speculation that Trump officials will present proposals at Friday’s Munich Security Conference.
Scholz and Merz will meet again next Sunday evening, in a four-way debate with Green candidate Robert Habeck and AfD co-leader Alice Weidel.
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