- Title: Friedrich Merz, the veteran politician tipped to be Germany's next chancellor
- Date: 11th December 2024
- Summary: HANAU, GERMANY (FILE - SEPTEMBER 16, 2023) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MERZ WITH EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT URSULA VON DER LEYEN, ALSO OF THE CDU, AT EVENT OUTSIDE FRANKFURT, SHAKING HANDS WITH WOMEN BEHIND STAND
- Embargoed: 25th December 2024 17:34
- Keywords: Angela Merkel CDU Donald Tusk Friedrich Merz German chancellor Kyiv visit Poland Ukraine Wolfgang Schaeuble Zelenskiy candidate conservative weapons
- Location: KYIV, UKRAINE / WARSAW, POLAND / BERLIN & HANAU, GERMANY
- City: KYIV, UKRAINE / WARSAW, POLAND / BERLIN & HANAU, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Europe,Lawmaking,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA005651511122024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Ten weeks away from elections and with a double-digit lead over his closest rival's party, conservative leader Friedrich Merz is getting used to being feted as Germany's next Chancellor.
The 68-year-old, whose trip to Kyiv this week highlighted his growing stature, faces an ill-tempered country mired in its worst economic crisis in decades and must balance satisfying traditional conservative supporters with taking his party rightwards to wrestle back votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Standing alongside Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Merz on Monday tore into Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his refusal to send Ukraine more powerful missiles and forcing it to "fight with one hand behind its back".
He also urged Europe's leaders to prepare for Donald Trump's presidency.
"We want your army to be capable of hitting military bases in Russia. Not the civilian population, not infrastructure," he told Zelenskiy.
Merz was initially seen as a transitional leader for the conservatives. When Angela Merkel stood down after almost 19 years as party chair, he was defeated by other candidates in 2018 and in 2021, before finally winning the post in 2022.
Admirers praise Merz as a tactician. The collapse of Scholz's government in November came after his legal challenge to last year's budget precipitated the funding crisis that wrecked an already unwieldy three-way coalition.
In his campaign so far, Merz's economic prescriptions have focused on tax cuts, deregulation and incentives to work.
He has also hinted that he might loosen a constitutional spending cap - whose stringency it was that made his legal challenge so devastating - to win over voters angered at the state of Germany's infrastructure while promising that any change would finance investment, not spending.
A protege of Wolfgang Schaeuble, finance minister and icon of fiscal conservatism, Merz rose to CDU parliamentary leader in the 2000s, before becoming one of several powerful men dispatched by Merkel.
He quit parliament after she became chancellor and has never held government office. He worked for 15 years as a lobbyist and board member in companies including the Germany branches of asset manager Blackrock and HSBC bank, as well as the publicly-owned Cologne-Bonn airport. Merz is a hobby pilot.
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