For Merz, after half a year struggling with a caretaker government and disappointing snap election results for the democratic center parties, especially the Social Democrats led by then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, there was good news on April 9, 2025, when the CDU/CSU and SPD presented a coalition government deal. When Merz was asked by Deutsche Welle’s political editor Michaela Kuefner what his message to new U.S. President Donald Trump would be, Merz responded, “The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track. Germany will fulfill the obligations in terms of defense.
And Germany is willing to strengthen their own competitiveness and that is not just Germany, that is Europe. ”The day after the election, Radio Free Europe reported Merz saying in a televised discussion: “For me, the
absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA’ in defense matters.” Merz added, “I’m very curious to see how we head toward the NATO summit at the end of June—whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly.”
For Merz, after half a year struggling with a caretaker government and disappointing snap election results for the democratic center parties, especially the Social Democrats led by then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, there was good news on April 9, 2025, when the CDU/CSU and SPD presented a coalition government deal.
When Merz was asked by Deutsche Welle’s political editor Michaela Kuefner what his message to new U.S. President Donald Trump would be, Merz responded, “The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track. Germany will fulfill the obligations in terms of defense. And Germany is willing to strengthen their own competitiveness and that is not just Germany, that is Europe.”
The day after the election, Radio Free Europe reported Merz saying in a televised discussion: “‘For me, the absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA’ in defense matters.” Merz added, “I’m very curious to see how we head toward the NATO summit at the end of June—whether we will still be talking about NATO in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defense capability much more quickly.
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