{"id":12392,"date":"2026-05-12T02:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/12392\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T02:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:06:09","slug":"merz-flubs-his-comeback-tour-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/12392\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz flubs his comeback tour \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While there will be little tangible impact on Merz\u2019s federal coalition, he will bear much of the political blame should mainstream conservatives suffer major losses to the AfD in those states. That\u2019s partly because, in an increasingly populist age, Merz has a hard time projecting himself as a man of the people.<\/p>\n<p>Even before he became chancellor, Merz \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/german-election-results-2025-friedrich-merz-next-chancellor-historic-question-europe-without-us-support\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a former\u00a0BlackRock executive known for flying his own private jet around Germany<\/a> \u2014 was often accused of being out of touch with regular voters.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Merz often seems more at ease engaging with business leaders than fielding questions from the public. This could help explain why much of his tour of the country in recent days has involved speaking in front of business audiences, where he is more likely to be well received.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2273461365-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8416172\"  \/>The greatest beneficiary of Merz\u2019s political failures is the Alternative for Germany, which has now clearly surpassed the chancellor\u2019s conservative bloc in polls. | Jens Schlueter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>At an \u201cEntrepreneurs Day\u201d event in in the western German city of D\u00fcsseldorf last week, Merz touted his cabinet\u2019s recent approval of a healthcare reform package intended to control ballooning costs and his government\u2019s push for less EU regulation in Brussels. As in his stop in Salzwedel, he asked the business leaders to allow more time for his government to undertake the sweeping reforms to tax and pension systems many of them deem necessary to restore Germany\u2019s competitive edge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a process that I am driving forward, that I intend to continue driving forward, and that I wish to accelerate,\u201d Merz said. \u201cBut \u2014 and this is also part of it \u2014 in a democracy, it cannot simply be decreed. It must be achieved painstakingly, step by step,\u201d Merz went on, adding that \u201cdemocracy is sometimes slow\u201d and \u201cit is sometimes laborious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Part of Merz\u2019s problem is that he came into office promising his government would turn things around rapidly. In his first parliamentary speech after taking office, Merz vowed that Germans would start to feel the country was changing \u201cfor the better\u201d by last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there will be little tangible impact on Merz\u2019s federal coalition, he will bear much of the political&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6759,479,1607,1646,446,4259,393,5,689,1610,635,253,1750,8343,481,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-12392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-democracy","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-energy-prices","13":"tag-exports","14":"tag-friedrich-merz","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-growth","17":"tag-healthcare","18":"tag-immigration","19":"tag-iran","20":"tag-olaf-scholz","21":"tag-tariffs","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}