{"id":60169,"date":"2026-05-06T23:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/60169\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T23:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T23:35:13","slug":"merz-ends-first-year-as-most-unpopular-german-chancellor-in-post-war-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/60169\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz ends first year as most unpopular German chancellor in post-war history"},"content":{"rendered":"

When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> was elected in February of last year, he warned the political mainstream that it was \u201cfive minutes to midnight<\/a>\u201d before outside parties consumed the nation\u2019s center.<\/p>\n

Exactly a year since taking office, it seems those five minutes have passed \u2014 centrist Merz is suffering the lowest approval rating of any chancellor in the nation\u2019s post-war history, and his most feared opponents are eating up the electorate.<\/p>\n

A recent survey<\/a> from the polling firm Forsa Institute found that a mere 11% of German voters are satisfied with the chancellor\u2019s coalition, compared with a whopping 87% who said otherwise.<\/p>\n

\"FriedrichGerman Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrives for a Cabinet meeting in Berlin on Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (Michael Kappeler\/dpa via AP)<\/p>\n

Another survey from the INSA Institute<\/a> this week found that 58% of German voters don\u2019t believe Merz\u2019s coalition will last until the 2029 elections, compared with just 24% who think he can go the distance.<\/p>\n

These are only some of the recent poll data<\/a> that assert Merz is the most unpopular democratically elected leader in the world.<\/p>\n

\u2018Announcements without consequence\u2019<\/p>\n

The chancellor\u2019s problems begin at home, where poll responses show he is most criticized for \u201cannouncements without consequence\u201d and \u201cbroken election promises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most obvious among these has been his sluggish moves to curb mass migration, the single most important issue in the 2025 election. Promises to make energy more affordable \u2014 exacerbated by the Iran war\u2019s effects on global fuel costs \u2014 have amounted to a tax break of 0.17 euros per liter<\/a> for two months.<\/p>\n

He has refused to cooperate with the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, preferring to keep them behind the oft-touted \u201cfirewall\u201d in the Bundestag, despite the fact that the AfD leads the Christian Democratic Union of Germany<\/a> 27% to 24% in national polls as the most popular party in the country.<\/p>\n

Merz\u2019s commitment to keep AfD at bay means his only viable coalition partners have been the left-wing Social Democratic Party of Germany. The unstable and conflicting posture of this center-left and center-right alliance has gummed up the German government\u2019s capacity to make drastic changes.<\/p>\n

When Merz attempts to speak in his government\u2019s defense, it often only makes things worse. At a recent event intended to celebrate local journalism, a disgruntled citizen suffering from terminal cancer demanded the chancellor answer for proposed pay increases to government officials while she struggles to obtain proper healthcare.<\/p>\n

The chancellor denied the accusation and scolded the dying woman for spreading falsehoods. But a draft law from the Interior Ministry had indeed proposed increasing top civil servant salaries<\/a> by \u20ac40,000 ($47,000) and the chancellor\u2019s by \u20ac65,000 ($76,000). These proposed increases were reduced following public backlash.<\/p>\n

Trump headwinds<\/p>\n

In the face of criticism for his domestic governance, Merz has always leaned on his diplomatic skills in foreign affairs. He has touted his ability to handle President Donald Trump at a time when many European leaders have been on the receiving end of punitive trade penalties and suffered frayed alliances.<\/p>\n

That talking point evaporated after the chancellor told a group of schoolchildren that the United States is being \u201chumiliated\u201d by the Iranian regime with the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Trump responded quickly, announcing a 5,000-troop drawdown<\/a> in Germany with potential further personnel reductions elsewhere on the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia\/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

\"AfDThe AfD party faction votes during a session in Berlin on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo\/Markus Schreiber)<\/p>\n

Christian Buchholz, a former member of the Berlin Parliament who is running again as an AfD candidate in September, told the Washington Examiner that his party is feeling \u201coptimistic\u201d and \u201centhusiastic\u201d as they watch each \u201cunbelievable blunder\u201d the chancellor makes.<\/p>\n

Asked about the party\u2019s game plan as the CDU falters, Buchholz boasted: \u201cAbsolutely nothing new because what we have done led us to the point where we are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He claims that the chancellor has so thoroughly lost the support of the German public that the AfD would be hesitant to form a coalition with the CDU, saying such an alliance would benefit his party only \u201cif a significant part of the leadership of the CDU would change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no trust,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

TRUMP\u2019S TROOP DRAWDOWN JOLTS EUROPE AS NATO CHIEF SAYS LEADERS GOT THE \u2018MESSAGE\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The AfD\u2019s potential to overtake the CDU is likely what is keeping Merz in office despite the grim polls.<\/p>\n

Members of both the CDU and the Social Democratic Party of Germany have floated the idea of breaking up the coalition, but it\u2019s generally accepted that the hard-right would be the immediate beneficiaries \u2014 an unacceptable outcome for both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget any hope that we could form a minority government tolerated by AfD. This will not happen with me,\u201d the chancellor said in an interview<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

AfD leader Alice Weidel scoffed at Merz\u2019s remarks, calling them \u201ca confession of his government\u2019s failure\u201d and proof of the CDU\u2019s ongoing \u201cpolitical fight for survival.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was elected in February of last year, he warned the political mainstream that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[307,939,233,249,4793,4792],"class_list":{"0":"post-60169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-friedrich-merz","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-friedrich-merz","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-polling","13":"tag-polls"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116530257778016130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}