{"id":181866,"date":"2025-12-08T23:05:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181866\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T23:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T23:05:27","slug":"german-vote-exposes-merz-weakness-and-some-cdu-members-far-right-ambitions-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181866\/","title":{"rendered":"German vote exposes Merz weakness and some CDU members\u2019 far-right ambitions \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> has spent just six months in office but, at 70, is already three years past Germany<\/a>\u2019s official retirement age.<\/p>\n

And on Friday a tight Bundestag vote \u2013 ostensibly about fixing state pension payments \u2013 could yet decide just how soon the centre-right Christian Democratic Union<\/a> (CDU) leader is nudged into political retirement.<\/p>\n

Pension policy is hardly the stuff of political thrillers yet Friday\u2019s outcome could make or break not just Merz, but also his parliamentary party leader, Jens Spahn.<\/p>\n

In just six months the 45-year-old CDU politician has failed \u2013 twice \u2013 to deliver parliamentary majorities. In May, Spahn fumbled the vote to back Merz as chancellor, causing uproar in the Bundestag chamber and forcing an unprecedented second round.<\/p>\n

Two months later Spahn failed to secure enough CDU MPs to back a constitutional court candidate nominated by its ruling coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD).<\/p>\n

A compromise was eventually found but the centre-left SPD has been on the war path ever since, making political demands far more ambitious than its 14 per cent in polls.<\/p>\n

In particular, its focus is on state pensions, which the SPD wants to fix at 48 per cent of final income until at least 2031.<\/p>\n

The SPD\u2019s non-negotiable stance here has prompted a revolt among 18 younger members of the Merz CDU, who say this will shift an additional \u20ac100 billion of debt on to already over-burdened younger Germans.<\/p>\n

For three weeks, this pension standoff has paralysed political Berlin and morphed into a much bigger battle over what direction the CDU needs to take in power to survive the next federal election \u2013 and whether Merz is the man for the job.<\/p>\n

The CDU is already down four points since February\u2019s snap election and, far worse, is trailing by 2.5 points the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).<\/p>\n

CDU conservatives say voters are punishing them \u2013 rightly \u2013 for failing to deliver on their campaign promises. Instead of radical reform to break Germany\u2019s six-year economic slump, the Merz administration has front-loaded SPD-backed policies on debt-financed investment on infrastructure and higher pensions.<\/p>\n

Without a radical correction, CDU right-wingers fear they are on a hiding to nothing at the next election.<\/p>\n

One more reason why, in advance of Friday\u2019s vote, all eyes are on Spahn, the most ambitious \u2013 and controversial \u2013 among the CDU\u2019s younger generation of politicians.<\/p>\n

He is juggling a tight, 12-seat Bundestag majority with 18 rebels among the younger CDU parliamentary party. After failing in May and July, Spahn has put the stick about this time \u2013 cajoling and threatening rebels to secure their support.<\/p>\n

At a test vote on Tuesday evening, many younger CDU MPs \u2013 with an eye on their future electoral prospects \u2013 fell into line. Yet sources say the parliamentary party was still 10 votes short.<\/p>\n

Even senior Merz administration officials are alarmed at how fast the CDU-SPD alliance is burning through its political capital, particularly over a pension row that is only window dressing.<\/p>\n

A full pension reform, promised by successive governments in the last 20 years, has been kicked farther down the road by this government until another commission delivers the same warning of Germany\u2019s approaching demographic iceberg.<\/p>\n

Today each state pension is co-financed by three working Germans; by 2030 it will be 2:1. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn every [parliamentary] vote you have to look at what consequences … voting behaviour will have,\u201d said Spahn on German television, warning that Friday\u2019s vote could \u201chave consequences, with everything drawing to a halt\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"BarbelBarbel Bas at an EU employment and social policy ministers’ council in Brussels on Monday. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet\/EPA<\/p>\n

Also warning of consequences is SPD co-leader Barbel Bas. As federal welfare minister, responsible for pension policy, she has made clear that Friday\u2019s vote will decide \u201cthe future of the coalition\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it fails there is the danger we will barely get any other legislation we bring through parliament,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even if the government survives Friday\u2019s tight vote, the pensions row has drained still further the reserves of a coalition that many doubt will run full term to 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will vote in favour on Friday, but that\u2019s it for me,\u201d said Baron Christian von Stetten, 55-year-old CDU MP for Schwabisch Hall in Germany\u2019s southwest. \u201cMy trust in our coalition partner is fully exhausted \u2013 after 200 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such attitudes are widespread in the conservative end of the CDU, increasing speculation of a Spahn-led plot for power in the post-Merz era \u2013 if necessary in an informal political alliance with the AfD.<\/p>\n

That, in turn, has triggered alarms outside the Bundestag given the historical echoes of the 1930s, when German conservatives joined forces with Hitler\u2019s National Socialists.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, with that in mind, leading German agitprop group ZPS erected a life-size bronze statue outside the CDU\u2019s Berlin headquarters of Walter Lubke, a Merz party member shot dead by a far-right extremist in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen as now, the road to fascism leads through the conservative camp,\u201d warned the ZPS. Its founder, Philip Ruch, unveiling the statute, added: \u201cLike many in this country I am watching with horror the CDU cosying up to the extremists.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chancellor Friedrich Merz has spent just six months in office but, at 70, is already three years past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,98773,176,8864,292,61,60,174,175],"class_list":{"0":"post-181866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-christian-democratic-union","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-friedrich-merz","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}