Friedrich Merz flew most frequently with the Bundeswehr flight coach

Union chief Friedrich Merz is also open to the Bundeswehr’s willingness to fly to appointments abroad. In the past twelve months alone, Merz is said to have used flight readiness for eleven times. He used this possibility as intensely as no other parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag.

The editorial network Germany (RND) reports it, citing the Federal Government’s response to a request from the left-wing MP Sören Pellmann. The goals were therefore Brussels, Paris, Tel Aviv and the Polish Rzeszow, a stopover when traveling to the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

According to the report, all other chairpersons of the Bundestag factions, which are also entitled to use the flight readiness, did not make use of it last year. Throughout the election period, Merz used the services of flight readiness 30 times. Rolf Mützenich (SPD) was the only leader of the parliamentary group (SPD) to use the Bundeswehr’s willingness to fly when he flew to Rzeszow as part of a trip to Ukraine.

Left-wing politician Pellmann expressed sharp criticism of Merz ‘travel habits: “Whoever deals with tax money so irresponsibly in the opposition and acts as a chancellor in SPE that nothing is to be expected for Germany in the future.”

The Union faction defended the travel practice. Merz “took the flight readiness to important European partners for a few trips,” said a spokeswoman for the RND. This was always done in accordance with the “guidelines for the use of aircraft of flight readiness”.

Merz is hobby silot himself. In July 2022, his journey by private aircraft for the wedding of the then Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP) on the North Sea island of Sylt provided Merz was also criticized by the left and the Greens for his flight in a Bundeswehr Eurofighter last June.