Politico reported on Mertz's loss of influence on coalition partners

The leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, is losing influence over the coalition partners, as negotiations with the Social Democrats have reached an impasse. This was reported by Politico on March 24.

"[Merz] has begun coalition negotiations with the Social Democrats, giving them exactly what the center-left parties have always wanted, reaching a landmark agreement to allocate hundreds of billions of euros in new loans to strengthen Germany's Armed Forces and infrastructure, including funds for green energy," the newspaper writes.

The media believes that Merz is taking a risk, as he needs to fulfill his election promises. According to his recent interview, issues related to migration and reducing social spending have become one of the main obstacles.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has disagreements in these areas. They are seeking to amend the country's basic law to ease the "debt brake," a strict rule prohibiting new debt borrowings from financing the budget beyond a certain level, the newspaper adds.

Change of power: German elections won by the opposition CDU/CSU party

Friedrich Merz will be the new chancellor.

On March 13, AFD faction secretary Bernd Baumann said that Merz could become Chancellor of Germany for a very short time, as German voters would not forgive him for deception and fraud.