General News
Germans are looking ahead to next year’s vote at a critical time, as the country’s struggles to integrate large numbers of refugees and migrants and as the major European economy weakens
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 "General News 15 things about Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate of Germany’s centre-right parties")
Chairman of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Friedrich Merz walks at the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany September 10, 2024. Source: REUTERS
German conservative leader Friedrich Merz on Tuesday announced that he will run for chancellor in federal elections next year, saying that his candidacy is fully backed by the country’s centre-right.
The decision of Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrat Union (CDU), sets up a stage for a possible faceoff between him and Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat chancellor, who has already announced he will seek a second term in the federal election scheduled for September 2025.
Merz said the big issue for the elections next year would be the “precarious” state of the German economy. He went on to say that the CDU/CSU would focus on improving “conditions for everyone, not allocating subsidies to the few”, as he claimed the Scholz government was doing.
1 – Born in Brilon, Germany on November 11, 1955, Merz studied law at the University of Bonn from where he earned his doctorate in law.
2 – He grew up in a small western town as the eldest son of a judge.
3 – Merz began his political career in the 1990s serving as a member of the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament.
4 – Before entering politics, Merz worked as a commercial lawyer and was a prominent partner at the law firm Mayer Brown.
5 – He served as the Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from 2000 to 2002, a role that made him one of the leading figures in German politics at the time.
6 – Merz was defeated by Merkel in 2002 during the CDU parliamentary leader election.
7 – After losing the power struggle, Merz in 2009 left the Bundestag and took a long hiatus from active politics to focus on his career in the private sector.
8 – He returned in 2018. The 68-year-old became chairman of CDU in 2022 after the departure of Merkel.
8 – Merz is widely considered a polar opposite in both style and policy to Merkel who led Germany for 16 years.
9 – Merz, as the opposition leader, has championed harder policies on migration, including turning back asylum seekers at the border.
10 – He is known for his advocacy towards a revival of Christian values.
11 – Merz is a father-of-three, married to a judge. He is an amateur pilot and in 2018, had disclosed he was earning around 1 million euros ($1.1 million) a year.
12 – He has worked on the advisory and supervisory boards of several major companies from Commerzbank to BASF. Merz was also chairman of the German arm of BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund manager.
13 – Merz, a protege of the late CDU stalwart Wolfgang Schauble, secured the role of party leader through persistence and by resonating with grassroots members who were disillusioned with what they perceived as Merkel’s betrayal of core CDU principles, according to Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in German studies at King’s College London. Apart from Schauble, Winston Churchill is the politician who inspires him the most.
14 – He is the author of 2008 book “Dare more capitalism”.
15 – Merz wants to simplify Germany’s notoriously complex tax system.
With inputs from agencies.
