How Friedrich Merz declares himself a savior of NATO

It takes seven minutes, so Friedrich Merz gets a bad mood. ZDF journalist Diana Zimmermann just asked the Federal Chancellor why he actually doesn’t manage to take his Union faction properly.

“I don’t know which world you perceive in Berlin, Ms. Zimmermann!” Merz echoes. “There is not a case where the parliamentary group did not follow the Federal Government’s proposals! Not one!”

Friedrich Merz is right. His failed election as Chancellor in the first ballot can also be explained with no votes from the SPD. The election of the constitutional judges was canceled before the vote could even occur. And the protest against his lonely decision not to deliver weapons to Israel, provided that they could be used in Gaza, has nothing to do with Parliament – and took place during the summer break anyway.

What break? Friedrich Merz was pretty wild. There was almost no vacation. The sun was enough to tan the face appropriately. But he didn’t find peace there.

He had to constantly because of Donald Trump and the Ukraine Telephoning and conferring, then even to travel to Washington in between. And then there was the sub -stop of the arms deliveries to Israel. In the CDU, but especially in the CSU, the decision was interpreted as a departure of 75 years of Union policy, which forced the Chancellor for a spontaneous DIE Stataträson-Gilt decree with a television discussion.

So now the official post-holiday TV appointment, one week before the start of the parliamentary company. Merz has long been back in work mode. This week he was with Emmanuel Macron and Donald Tusk in the Republic of Moldova and then again with Macron for the French-German cabinet meeting in Toulon.

After all, the setting of the television interview is friendly. While the ARD always hears the party leaders on a terrace near their capital studio-which in the case of AfD boss Alice Weidel invited to demonstrative disorders-the ZDF travels to the top personnel in the respective home.

In the case of the CDU leader and Chancellor, this is the beautiful Hochsauerland, more precisely, the port of Sundern on the Sorpesee. The fifth largest dam North Rhine-Westphalia is not half an hour’s drive away from Arnsberg, where the Merz lives.

Nevertheless, the performance will not be a home game for the Chancellor. The external and domestic political situation is too precarious for this. The coalition partners Union and the SPD are almost like in traffic, the fortailing is correspondingly bad.

As for domestic politics, the Chancellor is trying to balance balance in an interview. On the one hand, he explicitly excludes tax increases, of which his Vice Chancellor and SPD boss Lars Klingbeil recently spoke. Because of that, he says, there is nothing in the coalition agreement. And: “The coalition agreement applies.”

On the other hand, Merz also tries to end the debate for a pension at 70 by his CDU Minister of Economics Katherine Reiche about the summer. Because even of that, says the Chancellor, there is nothing in the coalition agreement. He relies on the principle of voluntariness, for example with the so -called active pension. The reform, which should enable pensioners to take tax -free additional earnings of up to 2000 euros, should come into force from January 1, 2026.

“We are not looking for what separates us,” says Merz. “We are looking for what lets us rule responsibly together.”

But what exactly is the common money, care and all the other promised reforms? Unfortunately, the Chancellor is not asked for this. Zimmermann prefers to talk about the chancellor’s visible trouble about the canceled judge election and how things will go on.

Merz tries to push the predicament away as far as possible. “This is a task that must first be clarified in the government between the political groups,” he says. “The two parliamentary group leader, who have now agreed again at the weekend.”

But what about the necessary two-thirds majority? Doesn’t the Union have to talk to the left besides the Greens so as not to be dependent on votes from the AfD?

Now Merz is trying to simply negate the problem rhetorically. “The left council sits as well as the AfD”. There it is talked about the agenda and the processes that these are “normal processes” in parliament. But: “Before we have any conversations with regard to possible votes, we first have to know what we really want in our own ranks.”

Translated that means: After the Union and the SPD have agreed, the Social Democrats should get the necessary voices for their new candidate in Greens and Left. The rest then arises. And the delimitation decision, which has long been outdated in the countries, can still apply a little further.

In general, Merz tries to get rid of reality as it suits him best. When he was asked that he had done the opposite of what he promised in the election campaign when he was taken up by the record debts, he produces the very large historical lance.

“Basically, we have been able to preserve NATO with our decision,” he says. He was on the summit of the defense alliance in the Hague. “If we hadn’t changed the Basic Law, (…) Then NATO would probably have fallen apart that day.”

Friedrich Merz: The Savior of NATO. He mentions the fact that he had a special debt pot of half a trillion euros in the constitution at the same time as the journalist opposite him.

Peace in Europe has its price, even if, according to Merz, it is “a tedious process” until then. One should “not expect that everything will suddenly be fine overnight,” he says.

This is followed by the expected question about the floor troops in Ukraine, whose stationing Merz did not want to rule out, which in turn sharply criticized his CDU vice Michael Kretschmer. Again, the Chancellor turns to reality: The Saxon Prime Minister “is completely right for the current case,” says Merz. Because: “Nobody talks about floor troops in Ukraine at the present time.”

Aha. But why would the French and British do that? And why did he speak of a possible Bundestag mandate? Well, Merz replies, that applies “in any case of a mission abroad”, even if “we would only protect the air spaces over Ukraine”. That is a matter of course.

Is that actually? The problem is that with his type of political communication, Merz sometimes produces more questions than answers – and thus triggers debates that he then has to laboriously capture again.

But at one point the Chancellor is very clear and also very precise. The war in Ukraine can take a long time, he says. Although he tries to end the conflict together with the United States and Europe “as soon as possible” – just “certainly not at the price of the surrender”.

Because then, he says, the next country will hit the day after tomorrow. “And then the day after tomorrow we are.”