German minister rejects calls to debate Friedrich Merz’s future after election setback

After the CDU’s sharp losses in Saxony-Anhalt, Chancellor’s Office Minister Nina Warken says the wrong response would be to start debating Friedrich Merz’s position. The government, she argues, has difficult reforms to pursue and needs stability instead.

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Friedrich Merz leads a federal government that now has to tackle necessary, but also difficult, reforms, and I believe it would be the worst possible time to raise personnel questions.

“Friedrich Merz leads a federal government that now has to tackle necessary, but also difficult, reforms, and I believe it would be the worst possible time to raise personnel questions,” Warken said on ARD’s morning programme. The government and Bundestag were elected for four years, she added.

CDU state minister Philipp Amthor also defended the coalition’s reform course. “Questioning the reforms now would be the completely wrong answer to the election result,” he told Deutschlandfunk.

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Questioning the reforms now would be the completely wrong answer to the election result.

Senior Social Democrats, however, are calling for changes to the government’s pension package. SPD parliamentary manager Dirk Wiese said the coalition needed to find ways to secure the social welfare systems and provide “a bridge into retirement” for people who had worked hard for years, referring to the existing pension without deductions after 45 years of contributions.

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A bridge into retirement

Alexander Schweitzer, the SPD’s deputy chairman and leader of its parliamentary group in Rhineland-Palatinate, also backed changes to the pension package. But he rejected changing the party leadership. Asked whether Lars Klingbeil and Bärbel Bas remained the right party leaders, he replied: “They are.”

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They are.