New German chancellor Friedrich Merz has promised to build the Continent’s strongest army and deliver root-and-branch welfare and pension reform, as well as more coherent leadership at EU level.
In his first Bundestag address as German leader, adopting a more statesmanlike tone than during his opposition days, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician presented the broadest of outlines to revive Europe’s largest economy.
He also promised closer ties with the UK and said he would follow through on campaign promises of tighter migration policies.
The German leader said the coming four years would bring change “not with big ideological projects, but by creating the conditions to pursue new paths” of prosperity for all as well as social cohesion and security.
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From low- and medium-income tax cuts to a war on red tape, it was on security policy that Merz was most detailed.
Amid growing security threats in Europe, he promised the Bundeswehr armed forces “all the financial resources required ... appropriate for Europe’s most populous and economically strongest country”.
“We want to be able to defend ourselves so that we don’t have to defend ourselves,” said the 69-year-old in an hour-long address to the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament.
“Our friends and partners expect this from us; they practically demand it.”
Even before striking a coalition agreement with the centre-left Social Democratic Party, the Merz-led CDU agreed in effect to a blank-cheque stance on defence spending to reverse decades of neglect and arms depletion through transfers to Ukraine.
With a reported €60 billion procurement budget already pencilled in this year, up 15 per cent on last year, Mr Merz promised to follow up with a new “attractive voluntary military service” for young Germans.
In advance of planned Ukraine-Russia talks in Turkey, Mr Merz urged a “united front” among western partners on a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, with no “diktat” peace deal on Moscow’s terms.
“We are working hard, so that this clear position is not just held in Europe but also by our American partners,” said Mr Merz, who said he had spoken twice to Donald Trump.
The German leader promised closer ties with the UK in security, trade and research fields, all of which have slumped since Brexit, and to restore traditionally close German ties to both Warsaw and Paris.
“At the same time Germany will always be a close partner and ally of small and medium-sized countries above all in the EU,” he said.
A week after he stumbled into office on a second vote in the Bundestag, Mr Merz was anxious to placate backbench CDU conservatives furious at a post-election U-turn on debt-financed investment.
He said SPD-backed investment could only be justified if it provided a “long-term, sustainable” return.
Reversing decades of CDU claims on immigration, Mr Merz said that “Germany is a country of migration: it was, is and will remain that way”.
Drawing a line under the last decade, however, Mr Merz promised to follow through on campaign promises of tighter migration policies, but in co-ordination with Germany’s European Union neighbours.
“In the last 10 years we have allowed too much uncontrolled, low-qualification immigration into our labour and welfare systems,” he said.
“We will organise migration better with more limits, more rejections, more control, more repatriations, not alone in a national initiative but in accordance with EU law.”
On Israel, Mr Merz said Germany stood “unwaveringly” at its side, but reminded “all parties involved” of their “humanitarian obligation” to allow aid deliveries to Gaza to avert a famine.
Even more explicit was the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which said on Tuesday that “the Israel government has to accept that it has a responsibility for the civil population in Gaza, including permitting the delivery of humanitarian aid”.
Responding to Mr Merz’s address, far-right Alternative for Germany co-leader Alice Weidel dismissed Mr Merz as “the second-choice chancellor, a stigma you will never shake”.
