BERLIN – After years in which Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been accused of treading lightly on European and world stages, conservative election front-runner Friedrich Merz has vowed a bold return to international affairs.
The CDU leader has accused embattled centre-left Scholz of being parochial and often absent in EU affairs, and of neglecting the key Franco-German axis.
In the heated campaign ahead of February 23 elections, Merz loves to share an anecdote from an international summit in which a European leader allegedly prodded Scholz with the words “Olaf, say something!”
“If we want to lose all influence, if we want to make ourselves look ridiculous, let’s continue to behave like this,” Merz snapped in a recent speech.
A committed European and transatlanticist, Merz has said he wants “our country to be looked at with admiration again in the future, for us to be respected again in Europe”.
Merz plans to create a national security council and may seek to streamline strategic policy by having his CDU control both the chancellery and foreign ministry, which have often jealously eyed each other.
He has pledged to reset troubled ties with Paris and Warsaw and, crucially, to reach out to Washington to rebuild Berlin’s long testy relations with US President Donald Trump.
While Scholz has pushed back against Trump, especially on his designs on Greenland and the Panama Canal, Merz congratulated him on his inauguration with a hand-written letter.
Signalling he will engage with rather than shun the populist right, Merz has also praised Italy’s premier Giorgia Meloni, the EU leader with the closest ties to Team Trump.
