Chancellor at the Second Attempt: What Is Merz’s Word Still Worth?

He knew what he was criticizing Scholz for

On December 16, 2024, Merz accused Olaf Scholz of failing to use his opportunity and keep his coalition together. He said Scholz had not earned the trust he sought. A willingness to work and competitiveness were supposed to end the stagnation. CDU account of the confidence-vote speech (opens in a new tab)

His criticism was justified. Today, to me, it sounds like a job description he wrote for himself. Scholz had failed to use his opportunity. Merz claimed he could do better. Anyone who explains so precisely why others have to leave should later be especially clear about why he should stay.

The previous government left burdens behind. Merz laid those burdens out during the campaign. He knew the job he was applying for. If you list the previous officeholder’s mistakes so thoroughly, you can hardly be surprised when they land on your own desk.

And this man had a long run-up. Merz led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from 2000 to 2002; Angela Merkel took over in 2002. He initially remained deputy chair, left parliament in 2009 and returned in 2021. He has led the CDU since 2022. Merz biography (opens in a new tab), Merkel biography (opens in a new tab)

Then came May 6, 2025. In the first chancellor ballot, Merz received 310 votes. He needed 316. Only at the second attempt was he elected, with 325 votes. None of the 20 previous chancellor elections had produced such a failure on the first ballot. German Bundestag account of the election (opens in a new tab)

The second ballot was constitutional. Politically, it was a decidedly unfriendly welcome from within his own governing alliance. The very man who had accused Scholz of failing to lead had to try again on his first day.

I had already examined that election critically on my old website. The article is currently offline. The question remains: What is a claim to leadership worth when you later measure it against the leader’s own results?

Merz got his opportunity. After that long run-up, people are entitled to expect more than the satisfaction of finally reaching the top. An office is not a prize for persistence. It is a responsibility to other people.

Taking office also meant taking the oath to devote his strength to the welfare of the German people, further their interests and avert harm. Basic Law, Article 64 (opens in a new tab), Article 56 (opens in a new tab)

I want to recognize that commitment when no camera is pointed at the chancellor. In a business investing again. In a family making its next decision with less worry. A convincing performance cannot take its place.

A campaign promise with an expiration date

On January 31, 2024, Merz told the Bundestag:

“The tasks we face can be resolved, even without additional levies and without new debt.”

He rejected loosening the debt brake and demanded different spending priorities. Even in November 2024, he made changing the rule conditional on first making sweeping spending corrections. Parliamentary transcript, page 19121 (opens in a new tab), CDU account of his position at the time (opens in a new tab)

On March 18, 2025, the outgoing Bundestag authorized borrowing of up to €500 billion for additional infrastructure and climate-neutrality investments. New exemptions for defense and certain security spending were added. The CDU/CSU and SPD had introduced the package together; Merz was not yet chancellor. Bundestag account of the resolution (opens in a new tab)

To me, that was a fiscal capitulation to the SPD. Merz had defended the existing framework as a strength, then helped open it wide.

The debt brake as a campaign model with an expiration date. A warning on the packaging would have been useful.

The CDU/CSU justified the reversal by pointing to the deteriorating security situation. Changed risks and neglected investment can indeed require a new decision. CDU account of the agreement (opens in a new tab)

Then Merz owes people an explanation of which earlier assumption was wrong. And why he sold it with such certainty. Anyone offering certainty during a campaign cannot pretend afterward that people had merely heard a passing thought.

For 2027, the government plans €118.7 billion in new borrowing in the core budget, following €98 billion for 2026. The special funds come on top. This is the government’s draft, which parliament is still debating. Draft 2027 budget (opens in a new tab)

Anyone who still has Merz’s earlier words in mind hears those numbers differently. The man who knew how to solve the problem without new debt now has a very different bill put forward. A citizen is entitled to ask about that turn without first apologizing for having a good memory.

With electricity tax, the contrast has a smaller price tag and a more personal impact. The CDU/CSU platform promised a reduction for everyone. Relief was made permanent for certain business sectors. The general reduction for private households is missing. CDU/CSU platform (opens in a new tab), Electricity Tax Act (opens in a new tab)

Imagine the household that heard the announcement and built it into its expectations. After the election, it is supposed to understand why the relief will not reach it after all. The bill still arrives. “Everyone” was big enough for the campaign. Apparently, it became too big when it was time to deliver.

The grid-fee subsidy and abolition of the gas-storage levy provide other relief. They do not deliver the promised general electricity-tax reduction. Grid fees (opens in a new tab), Gas-storage levy (opens in a new tab)

I find this shifting of the terms dismissive. The politician keeps his office. The citizen is supposed to adjust his expectations. And then we have another discussion about why trust in politics is so low.

A politician can change course. A citizen is entitled to remember what he was told before. Merz wanted to stand for clarity. Now, somewhere between the promise and the bill, the citizen has to work out for himself which of those certainties still holds.

The big number and the small bill

€500 billion. A number that briefly makes you lose your own sense of scale. The loan for the business, a repair to the house, the contractor’s bill: everything looks small beside it. But that smaller scale is where the citizen lives.

The amount is borrowing authority spread over years. The real test begins with the money actually borrowed: What gets finished? What works better? What reaches the person who has to shoulder the additional debt?

For 2025, ifo president Clemens Fuest compared €24.3 billion in additional special-fund borrowing with a €1.3 billion rise in investment over 2024. On that basis, around 95 percent of the additional borrowing had not financed additional investment. Fuest describes this as diversion from the intended purpose. His criticism concerns that annual comparison. Fuest’s assessment of March 19, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

The Federal Ministry of Finance counters that investment would probably have fallen without the new financing. Preventing a decline would be a real result. It is, however, different from the additional renewal that was announced. Finance Ministry on the comparison baseline (opens in a new tab)

A business owner who takes out an additional loan will eventually have to show what it has produced. His lender wants an answer. Merz must give one to the people who shoulder the new debt. The scale of the announcement does not excuse him from the smaller question: What works better as a result?

Merz wanted to end the stagnation. When it is time to settle the account, I am not satisfied with an explanation of why there would have been even more stagnation without his decision. Anyone promising a fresh start must eventually show where something is moving. €500 billion is too large a number to end up explaining only the difference between two kinds of disappointment.

The local bill looks different anyway. Municipalities and municipal associations, excluding city-states, recorded a €20.1 billion deficit in the first half of 2026. Their capital investment fell by 4.5 percent compared with the same period a year earlier. Destatis on municipal finances (opens in a new tab)

That is the distance between the announcement in Berlin and the street outside your front door. Merz can announce the next big number. The person on the ground is already paying — and still waiting for something he can use.

Relief is announced in the future tense. The costs arrive in the present.

The “foreign-policy chancellor” and the people at home

On July 15, 2026, Merz considered the label “foreign-policy chancellor” an accurate description. He justified it by pointing to the connection between domestic and foreign policy. Press-conference transcript (opens in a new tab)

In my conversations, people often feel that foreign-policy issues receive more attention than the difficulties at home. I share that impression. Merz accepts “foreign-policy chancellor” as an accurate description. What bothers me is how well it now fits the distance I feel between his politics and people’s daily lives.

Merz can reject that impression. His answer becomes convincing only when his international activity makes a visible improvement at home. Someone facing his next bill cannot pay it with an explanation of how the two are connected. I expect my chancellor to be present even where his government has no improvement to show yet. There is no diplomatic escape route from disappointment at home.

Military aid to Ukraine of €11.5 billion is budgeted for 2026. The official overview lists €57.6 billion in military assistance provided since 2022 or committed for subsequent years, including equipment and training. Federal budget 2026 (opens in a new tab), Overview as of June 30, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

I understand the anger of a citizen who hears the large sums for Ukraine and is told to wait again for schools, healthcare or relief. To him, it seems money is more readily available far away than for his own daily life. Merz owes that person an answer: What security impact does the support achieve, what funds have actually been provided and how is their use audited? Above all, he must explain why his priorities also serve the person still waiting for an improvement at home.

The government justifies the support by citing Ukraine’s defense and Europe’s security. The Finance Ministry’s Scientific Advisory Board considers it necessary while calling for more transparent reporting and multiyear planning. The EU’s Ukraine Facility has reform conditions and its own audit structure. Scientific Advisory Board (opens in a new tab), European Commission (opens in a new tab)

At that scale, accountability is part of responsibility. Merz was not sparing in his demands of Scholz. A citizen is entitled to be equally direct with Merz. Someone who pays for his policies and lives with their consequences is not an audience member expected to applaud dutifully at the end of an explanation.

Someone asked me: “Do you think Putin is coming?”

Something about that question stays with me. A person listens to political speeches, follows the news and then carries that unease into his own life. I find the political language about war increasingly troubling. I expect Merz to explain the dangers and say where his decisions are supposed to lead. Anyone invoking the gravity of the situation must also offer a perspective people can live with.

A family cannot keep reorganizing its life from one speech to the next escalation in rhetoric. The chancellor gets up when his appearance is over. The unease stays with the people who heard him. Anyone promising security also owes them a sense of how an ordinary tomorrow can become something they can plan for again.

“Work more” — who gets to keep more?

I was told about a hairdresser whose commute to work had become too expensive. No grand economic theory. Getting to work consumes too much of what the work pays. Those are exactly the calculations I miss when Merz demands more work again.

At the Halle-Dessau Chamber of Commerce on January 14, 2026, Merz explicitly acknowledged that millions of people work hard and put in overtime. At the same time, he called for more work overall and challenged the idea that prosperity could be maintained with a four-day week and work-life balance. Speech transcript (opens in a new tab)

That acknowledgment is part of his speech. His appeal still strikes me as belittling whenever the individual’s calculation disappears from it. Someone who has worked all day and still has obligations to deal with in the evening does not first need to be told that he should really be doing more.

Someone already working more than is good for his family can easily hear: Your effort is still not enough.

If you recognize that situation: Where will you find the next extra hour? In the evening with your children? In your day off? And what will remain once travel, childcare, taxes and contributions have been paid?

The CDU/CSU wanted to bring social-insurance contributions back toward 40 percent. For 2026, the Labor Ministry published an average combined contribution rate of 42.3 percent—employer and employee together. The announced general tax exemption for overtime premiums for full-time workers has not been implemented either. Official contribution rate (opens in a new tab), Payroll-tax guidance 2026 (opens in a new tab)

The extra effort is demanded today. Some of the promised relief is still waiting to be implemented.

An illustrative calculation: Ten additional hours yield €200 after taxes and contributions. Travel and childcare cost an extra €80. That leaves €12 per additional hour.

Work must pay again. I want Merz to follow that principle through to its consequences for the person expected to do the work.

The increased commuter allowance is a promise actually delivered. Since January 2026, the deduction has been 38 cents from the first one-way kilometer. A tax deduction does not, however, pay the full cost of the commute. Current commuter allowance (opens in a new tab)

For business owners, lost time comes on top. According to a Bundesbank analysis, companies estimated their bureaucracy costs for 2024 at an average of around seven percent of annual revenue, up from roughly five percent for 2022. That describes the burden before Merz became chancellor and the task he inherited. Bundesbank on bureaucratic burdens (opens in a new tab)

Anyone running a business knows the hour spent with a customer and the hour spent meeting another requirement. Both are work. The same hour can be used only once. Filling in forms at night does not become easier because someone demands a greater willingness to work during the day.

According to the government’s response of August 18, 2026, the announced “one in, two out” bureaucracy brake had not yet been specified. Other relief measures have been adopted. Government response, page 3 (opens in a new tab)

My question back to Merz is this: How much of the work you demand will you first give back to people through simpler procedures and lower burdens? The chancellor demands effort from people already doing their part. I want him to reverse the order: first deliver on his own promise, then explain why the other person should do still more.

In a business, a wrong assumption costs money. The investment has to wait. The additional employee is not hired. Someone has to explain to the team why the next step is not happening. Merz can rephrase an announcement. The business owner must live with the decision he built on it.

I expect exactly that accountability from Merz. He wanted to restore confidence among people putting their own money and time at stake. He cannot now simply answer their disappointment with a fresh demand for effort.

A business cannot pay for its future with “perhaps”

A government can announce the next improvement for later. A business owner has to meet the next payroll on a particular date. Those two calendars meet far too rarely.

Perhaps you know the moment: You have a quote for an additional machine. There would be work for another employee. You have done the numbers and now need to commit. Then you reread the political promise on which part of your calculation rests. Will the relief arrive in time? Will it reach your business at all? You lift the pen from the paper again.

For now, the machine remains a quote. The additional job does not materialize. From outside, you see a business that is still there. Inside, a piece of its future has just fallen away. That is how I imagine the loss Merz’s promised reliability should prevent.

Anyone who then waits is quickly described as too pessimistic. I think it is remarkably convenient to demand confidence from others when they themselves have to answer for a wrong assumption.

The enacted corporate income-tax reduction illustrates the timing problem. The rate remains 15 percent through 2027; the reduction begins at 14 percent in 2028, reaching ten percent from 2032. That is a real legislative change. It does not abolish trade tax. Nor does it yet produce the liquidity needed for a decision in the fall of 2026. Section 23 of the Corporate Income Tax Act (opens in a new tab)

Anyone running a business has to finance the time in between. Payroll will not wait until 2028. Merz needs to bring those calendars together: the reform timetable and the calendar of the person who has to sign today.

And what recovery is meant to carry that transition? Destatis reports a 5.2 percent fall in business investment in equipment in 2025. The corresponding government investment rose by 23.6 percent, mainly because of higher defense spending. Its share was, however, too small to offset the business decline. Destatis on the 2025 economic year (opens in a new tab)

A defense order has economic value. But the large public order has yet to translate into confidence for the business owner around the corner. Merz must show where independent economic strength is returning. An economy looking increasingly to the next government order has not yet met his ambition for renewed competitiveness.

What does that mean for your next decision? If the customer pays later, the burden rises sooner and relief begins only in two years, good intentions do little for you. You need a calculation that survives the time in between as well.

Some owners therefore question the next investment first, long before discussing a move of the whole business. A new location may begin with a single contract, a function or an employee. Germany can lose its future before the company sign comes off the old door.

It angers me how easily this gradual retreat is overlooked. The old company sign still hangs on the door, and politically that seems to mean the business has been retained. Its future may already have begun to move away. Merz is then losing something that has yet to find its way into his next speech. A government can wait for the next recovery. The investment now taking place elsewhere will not wait there for it.

Merz made competitiveness a benchmark of his promised change of course. He must therefore also be measured by whether business owners can take responsibility for new projects again without betting on the next correction from Berlin.

A chancellor can remain in office long after his word has disappeared from other people’s plans.

Pay more. And arrange the service yourself?

I have heard this from friends and clients: If I could at least see the money being used sensibly, I would not be so disappointed.

For me, that says something Merz needs to take seriously: These people are not refusing to contribute as a matter of principle. They want to see what they are contributing toward. Anyone paying his share every month eventually wants to see whether the other side is doing its part, too.

A functioning state should be recognizable on ordinary days. In the school building. On the road. In an administration that deals with a request. In healthcare you can rely on. Anyone who has to arrange these things privately on top pays for part of the missing service a second time—with money, time, or both.

The KfW Municipal Panel 2026 puts the investment backlog perceived by municipal finance departments at €231.2 billion. Schools account for €68.9 billion and roads for €53.7 billion. Higher investment is also planned for 2026. KfW itself points to the recurring gap between plans and implementation. KfW Municipal Panel, published June 17, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

For the Federal Chancellery extension, the government lists up to 400 offices. The project was approved in September 2022, and construction has been underway since 2023. The cost base of around €637 million at early-2022 prices is supplemented by a projected €140 million for risks and inflation: around €777 million in expected final costs. Federal government on the extension, as of April 10, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

That contrast feels divorced from ordinary life to me. Schools and roads wait for renewal while the seat of government gets more space. Merz inherited the construction project. That is precisely why I want to hear how he justifies continuing it to the citizen who is once again asked to be patient about the next relief measure. A chancellor must answer for inherited priorities, too.

These are quantified backlogs in things people use every day. Merz cannot measure the change of course solely by his cabinet’s decisions. The father outside the school building and the business owner on his way to a customer experience conditions on the ground. That is where his promise has to reach them.

The healthcare system raises the same question. The calculation published by the Health Ministry projects a funding gap in statutory health insurance of around €19 billion for 2027 without corresponding corrective measures. By 2030 it could grow to around €44 billion. Reforms are intended to limit that development. Health Ministry on financing and reform (opens in a new tab)

Anyone already paying substantial contributions hears those numbers with a very concrete question: What is next on my bill—and what care can I expect in return?

I understand the anger. It is an imposition when every new funding gap makes people first consider which part of their own lives they must now budget even more tightly.

For a business, it can mean an additional burden. For a family, deciding what it must provide for itself. For someone self-employed, asking whether higher revenue ultimately creates more room to maneuver or mainly serves the next demand for payment.

Sometimes I get the impression that the imposition is better organized than the solution. Merz expects understanding when something costs more again. I expect an equally clear answer from him about when it will work better. A citizen cannot deposit understanding into his bank account. And he keeps paying while wondering whether the state still listens to him at all. That hurts more than the individual bill: the feeling of always being needed and then always being told to wait.

Anyone paying his share every month is entitled to ask what the state delivers in return.

My criticism of Merz begins where his promise is missing from someone else’s calculation. I know these questions from conversations with business owners and families. Anyone taking responsibility every day is entitled to more than another explanation of why he must keep waiting.

Scholz had failed to use his opportunity, Merz said. Then I want Merz to show me what using an opportunity looks like. If he only explains the gap between the claim and daily life, he is managing the very disappointment he took office promising to end.

When the journey home becomes a question

Eventually, considering another location is about an entirely ordinary evening. How will my child get home? Must I pick him up even though he should be able to manage the journey alone? Would I choose this place again today? Anyone asking such questions is talking about daily life. That is exactly where Merz should recognize his promise on safety.

These questions come up in our conversations. They also come from families with an immigrant background who have lived in Germany for generations. These people are talking about their home. Somewhere they belong and wanted to keep.

Concern about safety cannot be settled with a lecturing tone. Anyone taking a different route home, avoiding particular places or going out at night only with company has already changed his daily life.

The 2025 Police Crime Statistics record fewer offenses and fewer violent crimes nationwide than in 2024. That belongs in the account. The BKA’s SKiD 2024 survey also shows how strongly the feeling of safety depends on place and time: At night, 40.1 percent feel safe on public streets, paths and squares; at train stations, the figure is 27 percent. Police Crime Statistics 2025 (opens in a new tab), BKA SKiD 2024 findings, page 60 (opens in a new tab)

What concerns me is what this does to freedom of movement. That worry is already shaping daily life. Merz must not treat it as merely an inconvenient objection to his political record.

A location comparison must therefore include the family’s actual routes: to school, to work, back home. It must also include care, the neighborhood and the everyday life you would really lead there. A pleasant vacation does not yet answer those questions.

Conversations about Dubai often begin with taxes. For a family, how an ordinary evening feels can become at least as important. Safety belongs in the calculation of a place. Once someone experiences it, he eventually measures another location against it, too.

Merz and the CDU/CSU promised security and order. I want to recognize the success on an ordinary evening. A new power on paper is not yet a safer journey home. A citizen should not first have to prove that he is reasonable enough to hold that expectation.

That applies to immigration policy as well. I expect intelligible rules, control and an honest assessment of what municipalities, schools and administrations can actually deliver. Taking someone in means taking responsibility for implementation. Anyone who regards that responsibility as discharged with a political declaration leaves the work to others.

Treating millions of people with an immigrant background as a single group helps nobody. Our advisory work includes precisely those families whose own history is shaped by integration and building a life, and who are now considering another place again. That experience belongs in the discussion.

What does it say about a location’s reliability when people who wanted to stay now organize their daily lives with reservations? That should set a warning light flashing for Merz: These people are talking about a home they wanted to keep.

I will not play these concerns down. Merz knew very well what results a chancellor owed when he was confronting Scholz. A family’s question about a safer journey home cannot be too small for that standard. If your home becomes a place where you restrict your journeys as a precaution, a piece of freedom disappears from daily life. You can notice that without a press conference.

Europe promises freedom. Will daily life reflect it?

Anyone considering a move often looks nearby first. Spain. Italy. Austria. Switzerland. That makes sense: The distance to family remains manageable, familiar journeys can be maintained.

But a few hours’ distance does not resolve the whole question of where to live. A move within the EU takes some political conditions along with it. Switzerland has a different legal framework; your own ties and the rules there also need examination. Merz remains responsible for Germany’s position in Europe. His change of course does not end at the next border sign.

From July 10, 2027, the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation sets a €10,000 limit for large commercial cash payments. Member states may impose lower limits. Private payments between individuals acting outside their professional capacity are exempt from this EU limit. This is not a general cash ban. It is a concrete restriction you need to know about. Regulation 2024/1624, Articles 80 and 90 (opens in a new tab)

“Chat control” deserves the same close examination. In July 2026, the temporary rules allowing providers voluntarily to detect child sexual abuse material were reinstated, until April 2028. End-to-end-encrypted, number-independent interpersonal communications are excluded from this interim measure. Negotiations on the permanent framework continue. Council of the EU decision of July 23, 2026 (opens in a new tab)

In Germany, parliament held a public hearing on proposed IP-address retention on October 7, 2026. Here, too, a draft must be distinguished from a requirement already in force. German Bundestag hearing (opens in a new tab)

These developments differ in their timing and legal status. For each, I want to know from Merz: What intervention does his government consider necessary? What benefit can it demonstrate? And where does it draw a line, even when the next demand is justified by a worthy cause?

As an independent citizen, I want to know the parameters and form my own judgment. The state may give me its reasoning. It has to leave the judgment to me. A citizen does not suddenly become less of an adult after the election than before it. Anyone who takes his questions seriously during the campaign cannot treat them as an unwelcome disruption after the election.

It bothers me when a debate is conducted so that the desired attitude is already settled and the questions are meant only to lead toward it. I expect public-service media, too, to leave room for a precise examination of a government decision. Citizens help pay. They are not obliged to adopt the interpretation offered.

Questioning a priority does not make someone an opponent of the country. It may be precisely because its future matters to him.

Merz cannot hide behind the distance to Brussels when European decisions are involved. His government represents Germany there. I expect it to take an intelligible position on protecting private communication, the extent of financial oversight and the consequences for daily life. Responsibility does not end at the next institution.

Merz demands more effort. Then I want to hear from him what freedom he intends to preserve for the people making that effort. Anyone who earns something wants to decide for himself what to do with it. The chancellor cannot value that wish only when he talks about economic courage.

That is why considering emigration requires more than asking about the next tax rate. I want to know how one will be able to live, work, pay and make decisions in that place in the future. And what development today’s choice might bring with it.

A country’s proximity says little about whether it fits the future you imagine there.

When people start planning their future elsewhere

In our advisory work, we increasingly meet young families considering leaving. Business owners are asking whether their next investment should still be made in Germany. People with an immigrant background in the second or third generation are asking these questions, too.

These conversations move me. Imagine parents considering where their children should live in five years. The route to school, work, healthcare, proximity to the grandparents. They would really like to keep living here. Then they notice how often their plans now include the word “hopefully.” Behind that word are parents, friends and relationships built over time. And a business that has absorbed years of someone’s life.

Nobody who has built something here leaves it behind casually.

It hurts when you have to explain to your children why the place where you grew up has suddenly become an open question for their future. Or when you halt a plan in your own business that you still believed in a year ago. Behind the word “location” is the life you wanted to lead there.

The “Youth in Germany 2026” trend study recorded concrete emigration plans among 21 percent of respondents aged 14 to 29. In the DIHK Energy Transition Barometer, around 40 percent of surveyed industrial companies are considering relocating investment or production capacity, implementing relocation, or have already done so. These are different decisions at different stages, but serious signals for the location’s future. Youth study (opens in a new tab), DIHK barometer (opens in a new tab)

Have you caught yourself doing it, too? You read an announcement from Merz and now think less about when things will improve than about which of your plans should still depend on it. To me, that is the moment a chancellor loses influence over the future, long before he loses his office.

Another promise. Another deadline. Wait once more. Eventually, you listen less, invest more cautiously and look for another location. The chancellor is still at the lectern. Trust has already left the room.

This is precisely where Merz should have rebuilt trust. He arrived claiming he would end his predecessor’s mistakes. Now he has to explain which of his own promises people can actually use as the basis for their next decision.

In the ARD DeutschlandTrend for October 2026, ten percent were satisfied with the federal government and ten percent with the chancellor’s performance. Infratest dimap (opens in a new tab)

That is the lowest satisfaction rating for a chancellor in the history of the ARD DeutschlandTrend. The series began in 1997. Within this survey, Merz has therefore reached a mark no chancellor before him had reached. For the man who confronted Scholz over lost trust, it is a bitter answer to his own claim. WDR on the October 2026 result (opens in a new tab), WDR on the start of the series in 1997 (opens in a new tab)

On this record, I do not expect Merz to secure a second term. I also consider an early end to his chancellorship possible. That is my political assessment.

That raises another question for me: If a chancellor expects no further term for himself, does it change his approach to politically unpopular reforms? The price at the next election might carry less weight for him. The citizen still has to pay the bill. A possible political endgame must not become a license to demand still more of others.

Nor can the latest state elections simply be removed from the political calculation: The CDU received 17.23 percent of second votes in Saxony-Anhalt and 4.9 percent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These are state elections, not a direct election of the chancellor. For his party, they nevertheless pose a decidedly clear question about its claim to leadership. Saxony-Anhalt State Returning Officer (opens in a new tab), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Returning Officer, final result published in advance (opens in a new tab)

Merz knows how to describe lost trust in a predecessor. Now the question is at his own door. How much trust can his party lose before it considers its own course part of the explanation? Talking at still greater length will not be enough.

For me, Merz’s word has lost reliability. It can regain it through results people can see and use. The chancellor of broken promises would have to begin precisely here: with those who are still there, still doing their part, yet see less and less reason to build their future on his promises.

If these people put their next investment, their knowledge or their assets to work elsewhere, Germany risks losing more than a tax payment. Once skills have left, the next speech cannot bring them back. That is a risk I see in these signals — not a claim that everyone considering a move has already left.

I have been internationally oriented since 2010. My ties to Germany remain part of my calculation. So I also know how little the mere idea of another place solves. A business does not move in a suitcase. A family does not casually leave its relationships behind.

What is this persistent dissatisfaction doing to you? Do you still listen with the same expectations? Or have you already started examining options, looking at opportunities outside Germany and imagining a different place to make your life?

But how much longer do you want to build your future on promises whose delivery you cannot control?

Take your next major decision: an investment, another employee, or a possible move with the family. Which announced improvement are you already assuming? Has it been adopted, will it take effect in time, and will it actually reach you?

That calculation belongs to you. Neither anger nor political loyalty obliges you to make it look better than it is. Merz can explain his promise anew. You must live with the decision you built on it.

Merz demanded that Scholz earn trust. He does not make the most of his own opportunity simply by giving the next accomplished performance. It also slips away with every decision someone now has to make without trust in his word. To me, that is where his political promise breaks: he wanted to end the disappointment. Now he expects more work, more patience and fresh confidence from the disappointed.

If you have been disappointed, you owe the next promise no benefit of the doubt.

What happens next with Merz remains a political question. What happens next with your own life cannot be delegated to Berlin indefinitely. You are entitled to take that question back.