During his first term in office, President Trump described the European Union “as a foe,” established “to hurt the United States on trade.” He repeated the charge at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, but in more vulgar terms: “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That’s the purpose of it,…
Germany’s conservative leader Friedrich Merz is set to lead the nation after his party, Christian Democratic Union, bagged the biggest vote share in the country’s general elections, defeating Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany. Friedrich Merz speaks at the party headquarters, after the exit poll results are announced for the 2025 general…
Germans voted for a change of leadership on Sunday, handing the most votes in a parliamentary election to centrist conservatives, with the far right in second, and rebuking the nation’s left-leaning government for its handling of the economy and immigration. Early returns and exit polls almost certainly mean the country’s next chancellor will be Friedrich…
Germans voted for a change of leadership on Sunday, handing the most votes in a parliamentary election to centrist conservatives, with the far right in second, and rebuking the nation’s left-leaning government for its handling of the economy and immigration. Early returns and exit polls almost certainly mean the country’s next chancellor will be Friedrich…
Friedrich Merz, the man favored by early exit polls to be Germany’s next chancellor after elections on Sunday, is a conservative businessman who has never been a minister and was forced out of government years ago in a power struggle with Angela Merkel. The leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Mr. Merz earned his…
A chorus of criticism greeted Friedrich Merz, the favorite to become Germany’s chancellor, last month when he broke a taboo against working with a hard-right party to pass legislation. But it was a lone voice of dissent that rocked the country’s political scene: Angela Merkel, the once-beloved former chancellor, who called Mr. Merz’s decision simply…
The man who has been heavily favored to become Germany’s next chancellor took an extraordinary gamble this week, both for his political future and his country’s longstanding firewall against political extremism. It did not go as he hoped. In an effort to portray himself and his party as tough on immigration, Friedrich Merz, the leader…
They are ripe for disruption. Well before Mr. Musk first backed the AfD, it had become the second most-popular party in Germany. The Social Democrats, the country’s oldest party which once routinely won more than 40 percent of the vote, are polling at a historic low of 16 percent ahead of next month’s election. The…