{"id":299000,"date":"2025-04-30T17:32:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T09:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=299000"},"modified":"2025-04-30T17:32:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T09:32:39","slug":"germany-merz-set-to-form-govt-after-spd-approves-coalition-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=299000","title":{"rendered":"Germany: Merz set to form govt after SPD approves coalition deal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.bssnews.net\/assets\/news_photos\/2025\/04\/30\/image-268401-1746001743.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>ERLIN, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Germany&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;s top economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SPD&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Merz, who won 28.5 percent of the vote in that election, has pledged to build up Germany&#8217;s long underfunded armed forces and keep strongly supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;s strict debt rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. &#8212; NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ERLIN, April 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) &#8212; Germany&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299000"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299001,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299000\/revisions\/299001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}