Neither the EU enlargement nor the relations with the Western Balkans countries were the topics of the campaign led by Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), who is poised to be the next German Chancellor after his party won Germany’s snap election. Our interlocutors state that the outlines of the foreign policy will be known once the new Government is formed. According to them, Germany will continue to support the EU enlargement, but it will not try to make the process faster.
CDU, together with its traditional partner Christian Social Union, won 28.6% of the vote in the German election on 23 February. In his remarks on election night, Merz stressed that his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.
Merz has already offered to hold talks with the leadership of the Social Democratic Party of the outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz to discuss possible cooperation. In spite of the fact that Social Democrats won only 16.4% of votes, the party emerged as a potential junior partner in the new government.
