ERLIN, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz is poised to lead a coalition government from next week after his junior partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), said they had approved a deal with his conservative CDU/CSU.
The SPD membership vote passed with an 84.6 percent majority, paving the way for Merz to launch the coalition government next Tuesday in Europe’s top economy.
Merz, 69, is set to take charge at a time the EU faces sweeping changes in transatlantic security ties and the trade war launched by US President Donald Trump.
The SPD’s co-chair Lars Klingbeil is set to serve as finance minister and vice chancellor, an SPD party source said, adding that the party leadership unanimously approved his nomination.
Germany held a general election on Feb 23 after the collapse of a three-way coalition led by SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Nov 6, the day Trump was re-elected to the White House.
Merz, who won 28.5 percent of the vote in that election, has pledged to build up Germany’s long underfunded armed forces and keep strongly supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.
He has also vowed to rebuild German infrastructure and to revive its economy, which has shrunk for two years in a row but booked slight growth of 0.2 percent in the first quarter.
Merz has secured major financial firepower for his ambitious plans after the outgoing parliament approved hundreds of billions of euros in extra spending and a softening of Germany’s strict debt rules.
The chancellor-in-waiting has also committed to a crackdown on irregular immigration, an issue that has helped fuel the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
The AfD scored a record vote result of over 20 percent in the elections, making it the second-biggest party, and it has since run neck-and neck with the conservatives or even topped some national surveys. — NNN-AGENCIES