Germany

Germany: Merz Confirms Coalition Talks With SPD

Published FEB 25 2025

Story

Above: CDU leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) gets out of the car at the Federal Chancellery to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Feb. 25, 2025. Image credit: Michael Kappeler/picture alliance/Contributor via Getty Images

The Facts

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said on Tuesday that talks between his party and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) to form a coalition government by Easter, which falls on April 20, are underway and set to ramp up in the coming days.
DW
This comes as the CDU and its sister party Christian Social Union emerged as the winners of the Bundestag elections, securing 208 seats in the 630-member parliament. A two-party majority is only possible with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) or with the SPD — cooperation with the former has been categorically ruled out.
Deutschland.de
Bloomberg.com
SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil has warned, though, not to take a coalition agreement for granted even if both parties find common ground, as party members would have the final say in a survey that could take two weeks.
DW
Anadolu Ajansı
Europe's largest economy is no stranger to a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition, with the black-red alliance supporting Angela Merkel through three of her four terms as chancellor over the past decades, but cracks between them have since widened.
Bloomberg.com
Breitbart
Differences to be settled in coalition talks include the country's constitutional debt brake, immigration, defense, and economic and foreign policy — while Klingbeil said on Monday that Merz must soften his positions to form a coalition government.
Breitbart
Al Jazeera
www.ft.com
The newly elected German lawmakers will be sworn in by March 25 at the latest, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz will remain in office in a caretaker capacity until a new chancellor is in place.
DW

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

Germans voted for a right-wing conservative government to bring real changes, as the mainstream CDU/CSU and the nationalist AfD have emerged as the two largest parties in the Bundestag. That desire, however, will be ignored again as the CDU/CSU refuses to cooperate with parties other than from the left.

The European Conservative

American Conservative

Narrative B

The rise of the far-right AfD threatens post-war values in Germany, so it's pressing that mainstream parties oppose any cooperation with them to prevent normalizing dangerous nationalist ideologies. Merz broke that firewall to try to pass an anti-migrant resolution earlier this year — but it seems that he has learned the lesson.

RTE

The Nation