Focused on the second inauguration of Donald Trump, Europeans barely paid attention to an unprecedented outing, on January 23, of the German conservative leader then in the campaign, Friedrich Merz. With gravity, during an international policy speech in Berlin, he declared that “European security architecture no longer exists”. The day after the elections, he specified his thought : “Donald Trump will not respect article 5 of NATO” – the one who stipulates that an attack on one of the members of the Atlantic Alliance is an attack on all. In other words: the Republican may not move a finger if Russia attacks a European country further west than Ukraine.
After a victory far from the hoped -for success (28.5 % of the votes), Merz went even further. The future chancellor said that it was even imperative to emancipate Europe in Washington, a partner considered infallible in Germany before the return to the White House of Donald Trump. This Copernican revolution concerns as much his country as much as he himself because, throughout his political career and until recently, he was a convinced Atlantist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC1XGVJYPX
35,000 American soldiers in Germany
Friedrich Merz was raised in the passion of the United States, which is the source of Germany’s prosperity for eighty years, at least in the western part, and which at the same time ensured its protection-35,000 American soldiers still park on German territory. He was thus the president of the German Foundation for ten years Atlantik-Brücke (2009-2019), the aim of which is to tighten the links of the two countries in the fields of the economy, finance, education and military policy.
Merz is considered one of the last specimens of the “ADENAUER generation” (named after the Chancellor at the head of the country from 1949 to 1963), for whom Europe, but also US military protection, was obvious. It is however this “man of the past” (his nickname) who must make Germany accept the rupture of the transatlantic link and implement, in fact, the “change of time” (Zeitenwend) that his social-democratic predecessor, Olaf Scholz, decreed, before leaving him out.
Germany is just aware of the loss of its “American friend”, still in shock from the Munich conference on mid-February safety. On this occasion, the American vice-president, JD Vance, formalized the divorce by taking up the cause for the extreme right, after having criticized the European democratic principles, in a very offensive discourse.
Merz had however anticipated “this break for a long time,” said Stefan Meister, expert in defense issues at the German foreign policy. “We have to face the facts. The Americans, in any case part of the Americans, are now indifferent to the fate of Europe,” said Merz throughout his campaign.
His vision of continental defense remains blurred
Many now see him in him the providential chancellor in a tormented period, even if his vision of continental defense remains unclear. However, unlike Olaf Scholz, locked in a dismaying silence for more than three years, the curator decided to reconnect on this issue with his neighbors. “He has no concrete plan for European defense, but he has the ambition to ensure leadership and strengthen the role of Germany, says Stefan Meister. Merz is a chance for Europe.”
He thus wants to revive dialogue with Paris and Warsaw, in terms of this distance from the Americans. He was also already received Wednesday evening at the Elysée, just three days after the legislative elections. “Together, our countries can do great things for Europe,” he wrote on X after meeting Emmanuel Macron. “For him, Franco-German relations are essential, notes Stefan Meister. But he wants to move the cursor to the east. Poland becomes more important because of his geostrategic situation.”
As part of NATO, Germany welcomes US nuclear bombs on its soil that its planes are likely to take away, in the event of an atomic strike decision. A “sharing” considered as life insurance, but which could be undermined if Trump decides to completely turn his back on Europeans. At the day before the elections, Friedrich Merz therefore proposed to discuss with Paris and London the extension of the French and British nuclear umbrella to Germany. In early 2024, Emmanuel Macron had proposed to Europeans the creation of a new “strategic dialogue” and common deterrent exercises. “We never answered,” said the curator.
It is still necessary to give ourselves the adequate structure to prepare such exchanges. To avoid the diplomatic cacophony of the previous government, the future Chancellor therefore provides for the creation of a Security Council. This would concentrate decisions of foreign policy to the Chancellery, by reducing the decision -making bodies and by simplifying federal procedures, by limiting competition between the various ministries on the international.
Modernization of the Bundeswehr
All these efforts would accompany a process of reset of Germany. Friedrich Merz plans to unlock 200 billion euros in additional funds to continue the modernization of the Bundeswehr, the German army. To get there, he will have to return to the “brake on debt”, a rule that constitutes public deficits constitutionally. His victory of February 23, however, did not provide him with two thirds of the votes necessary to modify the Constitution, counting those of his future social democratic ally (SPD). And taken together, the two populist parties on the right (AFD) and on the left (Die Linke), opposed to the rearmament, hold a locking minority.
The coalition he intends to train with the SPD, struck by the worst defeat its history (16.4 %), does not promise to be easy either. Friedrich Merz will have to count with traditional reluctance of part of the Social Democrats, still marked by the Ostpolitik of the former Chancellor Willy Brandt, who advocated “relaxation” with Moscow during the Cold War. The two “realists” of the SPD, its current president Lars Klingbeil and the popular Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius are trying to win the basis still very pacifist and anti -militarist, who will claim a right to vote on the “coalition contract” with the CDU. “But the Germans understood in which new reality they are,” reassures Stefan Meister. Before adding: “If he shows firmness, a large majority will be ready to follow Merz.”
.