World Politics
Background
Friedrich Merz became German chancellor in the spring of 2025 at the head of a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition formed after an election in which the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made historic gains, finishing as the second-largest force in the Bundestag. Merz took office promising to revive a stagnant German economy and to blunt the AfD's momentum through competent, reformist governance — pairing tax cuts for low- and middle-income families with an overhaul of the country's strained pension system and new, tougher rules on sick leave. His first year in office has instead been characterized, in the assessment of a growing number of commentators and his own party colleagues, by inexperience, coalition infighting and a failure to translate policy activity into public confidence.
The pension question became the first serious test of Merz's authority. His government's proposed overhaul — including a gradual increase in the retirement age in line with rising life expectancy — provoked a rebellion among CDU backbenchers who saw it as a betrayal of core voters. After weeks of internal argument, the coalition reached a breakthrough in early July, agreeing on a package of 34 measures spanning tax, labor and pension policy, with a commitment to implement all 33 recommendations of a government-appointed pension commission by the end of the year. The German parliament ultimately approved the pension package despite the rebellion within Merz's own ranks — a legislative win that nonetheless left visible cracks in his party's cohesion and did little to arrest his sliding personal popularity.
Those cracks widened further later in July, following the resignation of Jens Spahn, the CDU's parliamentary group leader, amid controversy over his past use of a surrogate to have children in the United States. Spahn's departure forced Merz into a broader reshuffle of personnel at a moment when his government could least afford further turbulence, with September state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania looming as an early referendum on his chancellorship.
The political stakes of that early test are hard to overstate. Merz had campaigned in 2025 explicitly on the premise that only competent, center-right governance could arrest the AfD's rise after the party's breakthrough into second place nationally. His coalition with the SPD, itself a marriage of necessity after neither major bloc could govern alone, was framed from the outset as a firewall — a demonstration that Germany's traditional governing parties could still deliver results without relying on the far right for votes. Every subsequent misstep, from the pension rebellion to the Spahn resignation, has therefore carried weight well beyond the immediate policy question, feeding a narrative that the firewall strategy itself is faltering.
Key Developments
Merz's response to Spahn's resignation — a reshuffle in late July that installed current Health Minister Nina Warken as head of the Chancellery, with conservative lawmakers set to elect Merz ally Thorsten Frei as the new parliamentary faction chief — was intended to project stability. Instead, it triggered fresh anger within his own party and intensified scrutiny of a government already seen as underperforming. A member of the CDU's federal executive board told Reuters that “the events of the past week have significantly damaged Merz's standing within the CDU,” while reporting describes the process as a “chaotic overhaul” that exposed rather than resolved internal tensions.
Der Spiegel, Germany's most influential newsmagazine, has since described the mood inside the CDU as a “palace revolt,” reporting that virtually none of the senior party figures its journalists consulted believe Merz has a viable future as chancellor. Dennis Radke, a leader of the CDU's labor wing, went further still, telling the newspaper Bild that the party's current internal fracture is more serious than the illegal-donations scandal that engulfed former chancellor Helmut Kohl in the late 1990s — a comparison with real historical weight, since CDU history records only two prior revolts of comparable seriousness against a sitting or former party leader: one against Kohl himself in 1988, and the donations scandal a decade later. Unlike those earlier episodes, however, which centered on personal rivalries or financial wrongdoing, the current crisis is being driven chiefly by doubts about Merz's competence and management style rather than any single scandal.
Underlying tensions between the coalition partners have also resurfaced. Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has drawn Merz's displeasure over her performance in the role, while relations between the CDU/CSU and its SPD coalition partners — led by Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil — have at points turned openly stormy; Reiche publicly criticized Klingbeil earlier in the year, a rare public breach of coalition discipline. Polling released alongside the reshuffle fallout has compounded the sense of crisis: one survey put Merz's personal approval rating at just 15%, with only 49% of his own party's supporters expressing satisfaction with his leadership, while a separate poll found 70% of respondents rating his chancellorship negatively and 68% describing the federal government's overall performance as poor. The same polling shows the AfD climbing to 28% support nationally — its largest-ever lead over the CDU/CSU, which stands at 23% — a milestone that would have been difficult to imagine when Merz took office promising to contain the far right's rise.
Reactions
Reaction within Germany has split along familiar lines. CDU loyalists close to Merz have sought to downplay the crisis as the product of one difficult news cycle following a single, mishandled personnel decision, arguing that the pension deal in July demonstrated the coalition's underlying capacity to govern despite the noise. Critics within the party, by contrast — speaking anonymously to Der Spiegel and other outlets — describe a chancellor who has lost the benefit of the doubt after a first year defined by improvisation rather than command, and who is now viewed by many of his own colleagues as a liability heading into the autumn state elections.
The SPD, Merz's coalition partner, has largely avoided public commentary on the CDU's internal strife, wary of destabilizing a coalition it also depends on, though the friction between Klingbeil and Reiche suggests coalition unity is fraying on both sides of the aisle. Opposition parties on the left have seized on the polling to argue that Merz's government has failed to deliver the competence it promised, while the AfD has used the turmoil to reinforce its core message that Germany's mainstream parties are incapable of governing effectively — a message that appears to be resonating, given the party's record polling. Beyond Germany's borders, the instability has drawn quiet concern among European allies who see Berlin as central to the European Union's cohesion on issues ranging from Ukraine's accession process to collective defense spending commitments agreed at last year's NATO summit; a chancellor consumed by domestic party management is widely seen as a less reliable partner on those fronts.
What's Next
The September state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania now loom as the immediate proving ground for Merz's leadership. Poor results for the CDU in any of the three — particularly if accompanied by further gains for the AfD, which is already polling far ahead of the CDU/CSU nationally — could accelerate the internal push to replace him that Der Spiegel's reporting suggests is already underway informally. Party figures are reportedly discussing a possible change in leadership only after those elections, rather than moving preemptively, but the timeline could shift quickly if Merz's polling deteriorates further or if another unforced error along the lines of the Spahn affair emerges.
In the near term, watch for whether Merz can stabilize his cabinet with the Warken and Frei appointments or whether further reshuffling becomes necessary, whether coalition relations with the SPD hold through the autumn, and whether the pension and tax reforms passed in July begin to show any measurable economic benefit that might blunt the AfD's momentum before voters go to the polls. Failing that, Germany — Europe's largest economy and a linchpin of the continent's response to the war in Ukraine and its own rearmament — may enter the autumn with a chancellor whose authority within his own party is already in serious doubt, a prospect that carries consequences well beyond Berlin.
