In 2023, Merz opposed the proposed EU ban on internal combustion and hybrid vehicles by 2035, stating that the fight for carbon neutrality must be achieved with technology and open mindness, not bans.

Jan 2, 2025 · The German conservative leader Friedrich Merz, who is in pole position to become the country’s next chancellor, has said the EU should make a fresh attempt at a sweeping free trade deal with...

Dec 16, 2024 · Friedrich Merz criticized Olaf Scholz for failing to keep his promise, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, to fundamentally rebuild Germany’s depleted armed forces after decades of disarmament. | Hannibal Hanschke/EPA-EFE

A millionaire former corporate lawyer, Merz is keen to modernize Germany — a welcome prospect in a country with a bureaucracy that still uses fax machines. He wants to simplify procedures like Germany’s notoriously complex tax declarations and slash red tape.

Dec 18, 2024 · Friedrich Merz’s long and winding journey towards the German chancellery is a tale of the federal republic’s past and present. Marinated in the determinedly pro-European, pro-Western politics of Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the 1990s, he became co-leader of its Bundestag group in 2000, before Angela Merkel elbowed him ...

2 days ago · Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, ... Merz on Wednesday called the EU asylum policy “dysfunctional” and said that his proposals comply with EU law, arguing that Denmark, Sweden and others already do what he proposes. “We simply owe it to people in our country, and not least the victims of the acts of violence of recent months, to really ...

Dec 9, 2024 · KYIV — Ukraine's major European allies should forge an alliance aimed at agreeing on a "common vision" for peace in Ukraine, the leader of Germany's conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, said during a visit to Kyiv Monday.

Sep 17, 2024 · Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany's Christian Democrats, and Markus Soeder, the head of their Bavarian sister party, said on Tuesday they had agreed Merz would become chancellor candidate for...

Nov 7, 2024 · (Bloomberg) -- Friedrich Merz has waited 25 years to become German chancellor and his best chance is now just months away. The head of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union is the clear front-runner to lead Europe’s largest economy after Olaf Scholz pulled the plug on his coalition and called for early elections.

1 day ago · Germany’s center-left governing parties have cast doubt on whether conservative leader Friedrich Merz can still be trusted not to bring the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, into government after Wednesday’s events. He insists that he didn’t and won’t work with it, and that he didn’t break a political consensus, often called ...