Will Mertz’s Next Failure Be European?

Following numerous party-level failures, Mertz faced another setback yesterday (6.5.25) on a parliamentary level, as he was elected as the second chancellor by the Federal Parliament (Bundestag). Despite these challenges, Mertz managed to overcome them with varying degrees of difficulty, finding support within a desperate CDU base suffering from continuous electoral defeats. Parliamentary setbacks, starting with the initial failure to pass the €1.1 trillion package, were resolved with help from the Greens. Yesterday, he was elected Chancellor of Germany in the second round thanks to abstentions and a few additional votes from Christian Democratic MPs who didn’t vote for him in the first round despite being his followers! It is worth noting that Mertz became CDU president on the third ballot (in 2022, after losing in 2018 and 2021), passed the suspension of the constitutional debt brake with the second vote in the Bundestag based on its pre-election composition, and yesterday became chancellor with the second vote. The question now is whether Mertz’s next failure will be European, where it might be harder to ‘turn the game around’ since he’ll be dealing not just with his compatriots but also with European counterparts, like Italy, who are already upset with him and Germany in general. This is because Germany (under Scholz) imposed a new draconian Stability Pact on other Europeans, which came into effect on January 1, 2025, only to be the first to loosen or violate it less than three months later! Mertz’s package, approved by the German Parliament and part of the German Constitution since March 2025, includes unlimited defense spending increases, €500 billion for infrastructure investments, and borrowing capacity for federal states up to 0.35% of GDP. These points were passed without consulting the EU, even as the Commission under Ursula von der Leyen had published a White Paper on Defense allowing escape clauses for defense spending up to 1.5% of GDP for four years and proposed a European defense fund. With no chancellor until yesterday, Germany hadn’t even requested activation of the defense escape clause, unlike Greece and others. Regarding the European defense fund, the outgoing chancellor, Scholz, clarified that Germany isn’t interested in taking any loans from it, having cut all talks about Eurobonds. Now, the question arises if the €1.1 trillion package passed in March-April 2025 by the Bundestag and Bundesrat will be invalidated by the EU. Warnings have already been issued by German think tank IW and European bodies stating that Mertz’s package, especially regarding infrastructure, could put Germany out of compliance with the Stability Pact unless it’s reformed again, possibly adding an escape clause for infrastructure spending. Mertz’s first scheduled European test is at the regular EU summit at the end of June 2025, while his first international test is just before at the annual NATO meeting. After yesterday’s Bundestag failure, Mertz heads into these meetings politically weakened, as noted by Handelsblatt, questioning how someone can lead Europe when they cannot lead their own country.