Merz Says He’ll Seek Compromise in Talks to Stabilize Coalition

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would try to forge a compromise to steady his fractious coalition as his conservative party faced fresh scrutiny over whether it helped a far-right candidate into a top state parliamentary post this week.

Merz will host leaders from his Christian Democratic-led bloc and the Social Democrats in Berlin to overcome deepening divisions to push through a raft of reforms seeking to overhaul Germany’s pension system and long-term care and implement an income-tax cut.

“We see that time and again in this coalition — finding a common path that I can still support is a constant and extremely demanding task,” Merz told a conference in Berlin on Wednesday. He said he would seek “the path of compromise” at the crucial meeting.

The German leader’s support has cratered as his government fails to gain traction with the public and a series of state elections last month showed stunning gains for the far right. Merz is trying to hold his coalition together and gain trust through a series of reforms designed to shore up the social welfare state and lift the country out of years of economic stagnation.

Tension between the governing parties was compounded after the far-right Alternative for Germany secured a majority for a parliamentary speaker post in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on Tuesday with a handful of votes from outside its fold. The Social Democrats have said Merz’s party needs to explain the parliamentary maneuvering amid indications that CDU lawmakers supported the AfD parliamentary speaker.

Merz asserted that the secret ballot made it impossible to know who the defectors were — and that support for the far right is “incompatible with the values of the CDU.”

“Anyone who votes for a lawmaker from a far-right party to become president of the state parliament has to reconcile that with their own conscience,” Merz said in the speech. “Anyone who gives their vote to the AfD is playing the extremists’ games and destroying credibility.”