In the political life of Germany, there should not have been a rivalry within the same party of comparable magnitude, both in intensity and duration, as that between the former chancellor Angela Merkel and the current leader of the Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz. It is no coincidence that the latter managed to climb to this office with his… third and most dangerous attempt, in 2021 and after the once undisputed leader of the CDU had now completely withdrawn from internal party life.

The chancellor’s antipathy for the “bunch” of politicians, which also appears in her recently published memoirs, goes back to 2000, when she was the one who managed to climb into the leadership, against the “conspiracy of men”, among which was of course Mertz in a hitherto conservative and male-dominated party.

It later unseated Mertz as a parliamentary representative and led him to temporarily retire from politics in 2009, switching to the banking sector. His comeback attempt was one of his most painful experiences, when in December 2018 he was defeated in the race to succeed Merkel by the latter’s chosen one, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer at the Hamburg conference.

The feelings are mutual

The feelings of dislike are mutual. At a recent “social” event, Mertz elegantly avoided commenting on Merkel’s 16 years as chancellor, using a phrase from Hannah Arendt, that politicians are judged by history. But history is sometimes in the mood for strange games. One such may be preparing for the politician now, who based on today’s data will be the next chancellor after the February 23 elections.

Mertz, a “man of the economy” as he likes to be called (not necessarily of the banks, as left-wing MPs call him), will be faced with a mission that looks like a titan and which many wonder if he even has the skills to carry out. end.

An epidemic of lockouts and… whining

The German economy seems unable to pull itself out of recession. Businesses continue to announce closures for their production units one after the other. Volkswagen, Audi, Ford, Bosch, Thyssenkrupp. Tens of thousands of jobs will disappear in the coming years. One in four companies states that they are planning to reduce staff. The businessmen’s optimism index is falling and the citizens’ anxiety index is hitting red. Forecasts remain solidly gray.

All this is not unrelated to the choices of the Merkel period. It is not just the dependence on Russian energy that many now accuse her of. This was a timeless choice of Berlin’s, which anyone else in her position would not question. The big problem facing Germany today is the aging of its infrastructure, the technological lag in areas such as communications, transportation, digitization, which are due to the complete absence of long-term investments for decades. The lack of reforms, the absence of flexible structures was the result of complacency and then inaction, which caused the feeling of superiority during the crisis years. The country seemed to run at an acquired speed, but with the engines off. The warnings of several economists were ignored.

Today Germany is paying for exactly this Merkel legacy, which the next chancellor cannot… renounce. Even if Mertz has the support of the “economy” to make difficult decisions, the question is to what extent a society, which for some years has been listening almost exclusively to unpleasant news and ominous forecasts, is ready to “digest” them.