What a radically changing year 2025 has been: a year in which Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, found himself fighting not merely the parliamentary opposition, the Russian threat and the brittle promise of European unity, but also his weakest and most self-confident adversary of all – his own coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD).

After years of aborted ascents, Friedrich Merz has finally reached the summit. For more than seven months now, he has sat in the Kanzleramt in Berlin he once seemed destined never to occupy. His ascent, however, was ungainly. Two rounds of voting were required to crown him chancellor. A monumental volte-face on the reform of the constitutional debt brake shattered his reputation for reliability before the paint on the office door had even dried. And all the while, his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), can feel the AfD’s breath growing warmer, closer, more confident.

Still, to conclude that Merz has failed would be premature. There have been unmistakable hits amid the stumbles. The arrival of Alexander Dobrindt at the Interior Ministry marked a rhetorical, if not yet substantive, shift on migration. Abroad, Merz has projected something Germany had conspicuously lacked under his predecessor Olaf Scholz: presence. Where Scholz faded into communiqués and caveats, Merz shows up, speaks plainly and, crucially, is noticed. When the New York Times recently crowned him ‘the strongest remaining leader among Europe’s great powers’, it was not flattery but relief.

Merz still has time. But time........

© The Spectator