While Friedrich Merz was already being celebrated in Brussels as Europe’s saviour, the reins of power slipped from his grasp at home. The situation is so critical that Merz’s chancellorship is hanging in the balance, as his CDU/CSU Union has manoeuvred itself into an almost hopeless situation. The SPD, of all parties, after suffering its biggest election defeat in 128 years, is benefiting from this. How did it come to this?
The starting point was the failure of Olaf Scholz’s coalition in November 2024. However, the three-party coalition between the SPD, the Greens, and the liberal FDP actually ended a year earlier when the Federal Constitutional Court declared its budget invalid. The immediate cause was the much-criticised debt brake in the constitution, but the fundamental problems lay deeper. Decades of failure to implement economic reforms and misguided decisions, such as in Germany’s energy and migration policies, have led to a notorious weakness in economic growth. As a result, the expensive election promises of the three parties could no longer be financed.
The early election of the Bundestag offered the establishment parties of the political centre the chance to readjust. However, the SPD stylised itself as the party of ‘carry on as before’ and made the debt break the scapegoat. But the failure of the Union was much more significant: they recognised the problem and promised an economic and migration turnaround but simultaneously allowed themselves to be drawn into the firewall debate regarding the AfD. So, even before the election, the electorate could see that the Union lacked a coalition partner to implement such a turnaround.
As a result, the February 2025 election marked a tectonic shift in the political landscape, with more voters changing their allegiance than at any point since 1949. The result was a strong showing for the AfD and the Left, while the Union had to make do with the second-worst result in its history. Together with the Social Democrats, who suffered their worst result since 1887, it was reduced to its ageing core voter base. The CDU/CSU and the SPD, which in 2013 together held 80% of the seats, now only have a wafer-thin majority of twelve seats.
Together with the ‘geopolitical situation’, i.e., Trump assuming office and the unresolved war in Ukraine, this situation has led to a terrible panic, especially within the Union. Merz threw the debt brake overboard to simulate political leadership within days of the election, even though it was the party’s only remaining unique selling point.
Since the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens did not have a two-thirds majority in the newly elected Bundestag to amend the constitution, they went to the limits of what was legally possible and reconvened the old Bundestag, elected in 2021. However, Merz and the Union now also had to convince the SPD and the Greens within days, and they did so by giving them everything they wanted—and more. Why? Because the Union lacked the strength to tackle the necessary reforms. Instead, Merz opted for taking the easy way out because, with the massive new debts, the problem could be postponed. The fact that they promised voters precisely the opposite was ignored because ‘once we’re back in power, we’ll be able to sort things out.’ It’s one thing to circumvent the recently expressed will of the voters with a legal trick. But would this at least secure the office in the Federal Chancellery for Merz?
By giving the SPD (and the Greens) what they have always wanted before even entering coalition negotiations, Merz has given away his strongest bargaining chip. The fact that the Union, thanks to the firewall against the AfD, had placed itself in Babylonian captivity with the political left was only the first act. Now, Merz has dug his own political grave, laid a political bomb under the Union, and handed the detonator to the SPD. Whether the Union or the SPD ‘wins,’ the outcome of the coalition negotiations has become almost irrelevant. Merz is going into the election for Chancellor in a situation where there are massive tactical incentives not to vote for him. MPs of his own party could refrain from supporting him in the secret ballot because they know that the CDU/CSU’s complete self-abandonment is only grist to the AfD’s mill. A coalition agreement that bears the SPD’s handwriting only paves the way for the AfD to replace the Union as the strongest political force. Even if Merz gets the coalition he wants, the AfD opposition’s speeches will write themselves: ‘You promised us something completely different in the elections, Mr Merz…!’
But even more importantly, the SPD now has an enormous tactical interest in not electing Merz. An absolute majority in parliament is needed in the first ballot, but 13 defectors are enough to miss it. A relative majority is sufficient in the following ballots, and the SPD and the Greens together have more MPs than the CDU/CSU if only some MPs from the Left vote with them. In such a situation, they could go to the president and ask for the appointment of a minority government.
This is where another incredible strategic mistake by the Union comes into play: in 2022, they were foolish enough to elect SPD candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier as president. The German constitution even allows such a minority government to govern. Not only has the CDU/CSU just opened the floodgates to government debt—such a minority government could also pass budgets because Art. 81 allows the Bundestag to be bypassed if only a majority in the upper house, the Bundesrat, is achieved, and this would only be a few votes away. Art. 113 would also give the minority government a veto over laws that a possible majority of Union and AfD could pass against it. Do not forget that the SPD and the Greens are desperate after their election losses. Yet, in this way, they could finance their party’s political ecosystem and hand out gifts to their electorate. At the same time, they could fill all the critical positions, especially the EU Council. The SPD and the Greens would once again lead Germany. This is also tempting internationally because the Social Democrats and the Greens, as part of European governments, have become a rare phenomenon. Why should they elect Merz and be downgraded to a junior partner when all this is within reach?
Of course, that would be a complete reversal of the will of the voters, as expressed in the recent election. In such a situation, the Union would have no choice but to completely change its leadership and throw the firewall overboard. The fact that there are no open communication channels with reasonable partners in the AfD and no cooperation has been practised would then take its toll. So, they would first have to do this development work, which is always done in the German political system at the level of the federal states.
In Saxony and Thuringia, CDU-AfD majorities already exist, and such are to be expected after the state elections in 2026 in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Maybe even the 2026 elections in West German states like Baden-Württemberg or Rhineland-Palatinate could result in CDU-AfD governments. The Union could break this taboo if it were ousted from power by the SPD and the Greens at the federal level. But it would be difficult, and a red-green minority government led by Chancellor Lars Klingbeil could exist for a few years before a CDU-AfD government would replace him following a constructive vote of no confidence.
The last time a vote of no confidence was successful was in 1982, when Helmut Kohl became chancellor. However, the ‘Wende’ [turnaround] of 1982 would pale in scale compared to this new ‘Wende.’ If only the Union and the SPD had not succumbed to the temptation of easy money but had faced up to the necessary work in the country’s interest! But these two parties are about to fail at the very thing they have always prided themselves on: political responsibility.
