Friedrich Merz, the first days: a lot of room for improvement

Have you got used to it? The “Tagesschau” suddenly says that “Chancellor Merz” had traveled to somewhere. You twitch together, right? Even with the news speakers, I sometimes mean to perceive a short break between office and names. Even the Federal Press Office was so red who was sent a message about the press conference of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Prime Minister Donald Tusk after the inaugural visit to Warsaw. Ups!

So Friedrich Merz is the Chancellor. What changed in the first week? Well, in the pictures with other heads of state and government you no longer have to search for the Germans, it is now the Lulatsch who inevitably leads the small talk with his colleagues from above. On the other hand, the 1.98-meter chancellor could almost have kept his ears at the coffee table in Kiev with his knees. Well, admittedly: A few centimeters were still missing – about as many as initially voices from the coalition in the chancellor’s election.

If something starts bad, you say, it can only get better. Merz ‘Chancellery began on May 6th after the first ballot in the Bundestag in the ultimate form of “bad”, namely not at all. The hourly confusion until the second ballot was not nice for the CDuler, but it was also not as close to a state crisis as some commentators and opposition politicians described. A little weakened, Merz started office, of course, not even a chancellor and has already entered history. One of them has its time, it says in the Bible, but maybe even the love of God needed a few minutes to think before Merz.

So it started badly, well, but did it get better afterwards? Merz had announced a rigorous approach to illegal migration, from day one he wanted to instruct his interior minister to enforce a factual ban on entry. This will not have been necessary with Alexander Dobrindt, who has been waiting to tighten the refugee policy for ten years, and, hardly in office, jerk, pucked more federal police for stricter controls to the borders.

The effort is immensely controversial, communication in need of improvement – and one or the other neighbor degeneeses. But the CSU jubilates, finally the end of Merkel’s refugee policy of the friendly face, migrants now receive the face Markus Söders. And Friedrich Merz would like to report every dismissed asylum seeker individually, if only because the stricter migration policy is one of the last of his election promises that he can still hold.

The most gratifying for Merz was the visit with three other bosses in Kyiv. It was a good signal for the willingness of Europe to help Ukraine. However, it has to be shown whether the journey goes beyond symbolism and the threat of new sanctions Putin is really impressed. On Monday at midnight, the ultimatum went to Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. On Thursday, they were still tinkering with new sanctions.

Merz’s first government declaration was not exactly a great moment of parliament. In rhetoric as boring as Scholz, in the content as descriptive as Merkel – the formerly pointed opposition speaker Merz is still looking for his style as a chancellor. Defining problems is not the same as they can be solved.

After a little more than a week, Merz’s chancellery is still a big claim: a lot becomes different, some things are better. But with his “I pull this through” rhetoric, Merz has indebted that he would be measured hard on his own announcements from day one. And then it can be said: It is not quite as well as it has started.