{"id":12649,"date":"2026-05-12T14:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/12649\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T14:44:10","slug":"germanys-merz-booed-at-major-trade-union-congress-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/12649\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Merz booed at major trade union congress \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking ahead, Merz called pension reform the \u201ctoughest nut to crack.\u201d \u201cNone of this is malice on my part or on the part of the federal government,\u201d he insisted. \u201cIt is demography and mathematics.\u201d That line drew another wave of boos and whistles from the audience.<\/p>\n

The hostile reception comes as Merz\u2019s popularity continues to crater<\/a>. According to the latest monthly DeutschlandTrend survey<\/a> published on May 7, just 13 percent of Germans say they are satisfied with the work of the coalition between Merz\u2019s conservatives and the Social Democrats.<\/p>\n

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has meanwhile surged past<\/a> Merz\u2019s conservatives in several national polls, capitalizing on frustration over economic stagnation, soaring energy prices<\/a> and unpopular reforms. The fallout from the Iran conflict and U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s tariff threats<\/a> has only deepened Germany\u2019s economic troubles<\/a>, forcing the government to slash its economic forecasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pressure is expected to intensify ahead of key state elections in Eastern Germany in September that the AfD is projected to win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Merz nevertheless urged unions to work with his government on reforms. \u201cWe need this joint search for ways to move our country forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking ahead, Merz called pension reform the \u201ctoughest nut to crack.\u201d \u201cNone of this is malice on my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,1607,446,393,5,5485,2700,629,2379],"class_list":{"0":"post-12649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-energy-prices","11":"tag-friedrich-merz","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-health-care","14":"tag-pensions","15":"tag-trade","16":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649","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=12649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}