Who Is Germany’s New Chancellor?

Sarvesh Kilariaar

London, UK

(Maheshkumar Painam / Unsplash)

Germany has faced something of a storm in recent months. In November 2024, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after falling out with his finance minister Christian Lindner and calling for a vote of confidence, caused the collapse of the coalition made up of Scholz’s SPD (Social Democrats), the FDP (Free Democrats) and the Green Party. Then, in January, Friedrich Merz pushed for anti-immigration motions in the Bundestag with the backing of the hard right party the AfD - breaking a taboo of working with extremist parties. These events all took place in the build up to the election on March 23rd.

Meanwhile, Germany’s economy is flatlining: GDP growth is forecast at just 0.7% in 2025, the slowest amongst all EU nations. The country’s overreliance on Russian gas has led to soaring energy costs following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese “Made in China 2025” strategy provides substantial state subsidies to support Chinese automakers, threatening major German brands such as BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. Trump's battery of tariffs (German cars are included in the 25% tariff package) has further threatened economic stability, and his smashing up of Western security architecture warrants increased German defense spending. Moreover, arguably unsustainable immigration levels under Merkel, but continued by Scholz, have come under fire.

Germany's election results offer little solace to anxious citizens. Friedrich Merz’s CDU (Christian Democrats), along with their Bavarian sister-party the CSU (Christian Social Union), won a victory of 29% of the voter share, which, though it was their second-worst result ever, still resulted in Merz clearly being Germany’s next chancellor. However, this reflects more of a loss of belief in Scholz’s SPD who received their worst vote ever with only 16% of votes. On top of this, Merz will hope to form a 2-party coalition government with the SPD, which in itself will prove challenging as the two former rivals will be forced to find compromises.

In fact, the only parties who are cheering are the two extremist parties: the AfD (far right) and Die Linke (far left) who won a huge 21% and 9% of votes respectively. While these groups are blocked by a ‘firewall’ - or cordon sanitaire - maintained by the other parties, their success highlights growing distrust in traditional government and disrupts political clarity and electoral mandate for decisive policymaking at a time when it's vital.

Merz will also have to make decisions regarding Germany’s nuclear capacity; he will travel to an EU summit on March 6th to discuss Ukraine and European security. Other countries look to Germany, Europe's largest economy, and indeed its new chancellor, for direction. Merz has expressed aims to strengthen Europe through multilateral nuclear cooperation with France or Britain to replace Europe’s reliance on American nuclear power.

Germany faces a bumpy road ahead. Merz will have to navigate complex domestic challenges while reassessing European security. On this front the continent looks towards Germany, and Friedrich Merz, for leadership.