Frederick Merz will not conduct ‘business as usual’ – and that may well be to the UK’s advantage

Greg Hands

4 min read3 hr

Another Grand Coalition may not feel like a particularly remarkable election result in Germany. But don't be fooled — Friedrich Merz, who I have met many times, will not be continuity Merkel and Scholz.

Last week saw Germany’s most significant election probably since Unification.

The dust has yet to settle, and the important job of Coalition building will take some weeks, but the main parameters are clear: we will have a so-called Grand Coalition (or “Grosse Koalition”, or “GroKo”) between the centre-Right CDU/CSU and the centre-left Social Democrat Party, or the SPD, led by CDU Leader Friedrich Merz, who I have met many times over the last decade.

On the face of it, another CDU/CSU-SPD Coalition doesn’t sound like much change. Indeed, there has been exactly this coalition for 12 of the last 20 years under arch-Centrist Angela Merkel.

But this one will be different; for the first time in decades the German Chancellor won’t be a cautious, consensualist, like Merkel or Olaf Scholz. Merz has a decisive style and vision, particularly with regard to the economy (more free market, reducing the regulatory burden); in defence and security (more than anyone else in Western Europe, he has recognised the decisive shift in US security policy) and in immigration (even breaking a taboo in getting the Alternative fuer Deutschland, the AfD, to vote with his proposition in the Bundestag). Merz is different.

For the UK, a Merz-led Grosse Koalition means a reliable partner in security policy, an interesting example on immigration and particularly assimilation, and a careful pragmatist when it comes to the UK’s own ‘reset’ with the European Union. Merz is a committed European, but will be more open-minded to UK asks than either of his predecessors, Merkel or Scholz. Indeed, Merz may well have been more willing to grant the UK greater flexibility in David Cameron’s own EU negotiations in 2015-16, had he been Chancellor then. Merz’s view of Trump II is also unusually bold – he has set out clearly how he thought the world had changed for the worse, but how Europe needed to act right away, not to ‘await developments’. Expect to see German defence expenditure rise, and perhaps a slightly greater willingness to see the Bundeswehr (German army) deployed abroad.

Merz is a committed European, but will be more open-minded to UK asks than either of his predecessors

Most of the worst fears about last week’s election turned out not to be realised. The AfD did very well, but didn’t near the 25 per cent many had feared. Nor did too many new parties enter the Bundestag – the Buendnis Sarah Wagenkencht (BSW) and the liberal Free Democrats (or FDP) fell agonisingly short of the 5 per cent barrier for getting parliamentary representation. All of these developments make Merz’s job easier: there is now only one realistic coalition, and it will be a two-party coalition as outlined above. The parliamentary maths point to relative stability.

I made it my business to follow German politics very closely in my 19 years as an MP. I visited the CDU Party Conference on at least seven occasions, the Bavarian CSU as well, and on close terms with dozens of CDU and CSU MPs, as well as a number of Green Party politicians, through my work on energy and climate change. I lived in Germany for long periods in 1985-1988, and in fact visited the former East Germany 48 times in total, so I like to feel I understand this important element in German politics, and for understanding the dramatic polarisation which has taken place in the East in the last decade or so. My ex-wife is (East) German, and my children are bilingual, so Germany has been a huge part of my life, ever since I took a job in a West Berlin swimming pool, Sommerbad Kreuzberg, in March 1985. (new MPs take note — develop real expertise in one or two countries and their politics and politicians, it will be invaluable skill and experience in the years ahead.)

In the meantime, good luck Friedrich Merz and we look forward to some good years in UK – German relations.

Greg Hands is a former Conservative MP who served as Conservative Party chairman.

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