Friedrich Merz hasn’t had the best week for boosting his ego. After stormy talks with business leaders who complained that he is not living up to various promises of reform, the chancellor received criticism from AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on Wednesday over his government’s budget announcements.
Although, as Bildpointed out, Merz chose not to be in the room for the latter battering.
Weidel described the coalition’s massive debt buildup as an example of its “extreme policies,” describing this as “a betrayal of the citizens, to whom you promised something completely different.”
This is a direct march to national bankruptcy.
She added that Merz was especially responsible for this direction of travel, saying:
You, the most bankrupt chancellor of all the Federal Republic of Germany, will go down in history.
Unfortunately for Merz, it appears as though German voters increasingly agree with this point of view, with 62% now saying they are unhappy with his performance as chancellor.
Ahead of this week’s financial announcements, Weidel called for the scrapping of so-called shadow budgets—special funds kept off the books for individual projects—saying that dissolving them would allow “for transparent finances, honest politics, and budgetary discipline.”
Demokratie braucht Klarheit. Jeder Euro muss nachvollziehbar sein. Deshalb treten wir für die Auflösung der Sonderhaushalte ein – für transparente Finanzen, ehrliche Politik und Haushaltsdisziplin. pic.twitter.com/Oa9zTgIoJA
German economic institutes also said on Thursday that they only expect a minimal growth of 0.2% of economic output this year, warning that the economy is on “shaky ground.”
Even representatives of Merz’s own party, the centre-right CDU, accused the chancellor of defying “common sense” with some of his government’s measures. Thuringia’s minister-president Mario Voigt, for example, warned that too much is being spent on the Bürgergeld (citizens’ allowance), adding there should be more incentives for work and stricter rules on housing benefits.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
