The Christian Democratic leader Friedrich Merz had promised that the government negotiations would be completed before Easter, and he kept that promise. On Wednesday, he could present the new coalition between the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD).
Merz himself will become the country's next Chancellor, as expected. What role he will take among other European leaders remains to be seen, but his ambitions are clear, says Maria Thürk, associate lecturer in political science at Uppsala University.
I believe that the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats are quite united in their ambition to make Europe more independent towards the USA, she says.
Merz really wants to work with the UK, France, and the other European countries, they really want to strengthen cooperation with each other to have a stronger position in comparison to the USA, China, and Russia.
The global situation affects
The rapidly concluded government negotiations, by German standards, may indicate that politicians have prioritized reaching an agreement quickly. German government negotiations can take significantly longer than the 45 days it took to reach a coalition agreement this time, emphasizes Maria Thürk.
Since there are such large ideological differences between the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, it would certainly have taken much longer if they didn't have this current global situation.
Rather the Ministry of Defense
Some ministerial posts are already clear, according to German media, at least in which party they will land. Usually, the second-largest party in a government coalition gets the Foreign Ministry, but that's not the case this time. The reason for this, according to Maria Thürk, is likely that the Social Democrats really wanted the Ministry of Defense.
They have a very good politician who has already been Defense Minister in recent years, she says, referring to Boris Pistorius, who is generally seen as one of Germany's most popular politicians.
So they would rather have the Ministry of Defense than the Foreign Ministry, and that's very unusual.
