It is a high game that Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is playing these days. Since September, he has been trying to mobilize the EU to use the frozen Russian assets of 210 billion euros to finance the defense of the Ukrainians. He wrote an open letter in the Financial Times and in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitunghe canceled a trip to Norway to address Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s objections during a dinner.
So far apparently without success. When the European Council meets on Thursday, the German chancellor will encounter a number of fierce opponents of the confiscation of Russian money. But for Merz it is a capital issue: he says that “European sovereignty” and European credibility in the coming years depend on it.
“The more we inflate the matter in advance, the greater the chance that we will be in our own shirt if it does not get through,” says political scientist Frank Sauer about Merz’s big words. The chancellor accepts this risk of failure.
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“The fate of Ukraine is the fate of Europe,” has been the motto of Friedrich Merz (70) for months. This week he emphatically takes the initiative to rally Europe behind Ukraine. A “very important initiative”, said outgoing Prime Minister Dick Schoof on Monday evening after the dinner in Berlin, where Merz brought together Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, American representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, EU Commission President Urusla von der Leyen and a number of European government leaders.
‘Berlin is now the center’
The pioneering role within Europe is new for Germany. Merz’s predecessor Olaf Scholz (SPD) looked rigidly at the US and did everything in consultation with then American President Joe Biden, not in consultation with his European colleagues. Political scientist and security expert Sauer, who is affiliated with the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, says: “Scholz was a catastrophe in terms of European politics. Merz is a great improvement in terms of foreign policy.”
Merz received Zelensky in the Kanzleramt in Berlin. The pioneering role within Europe is new for Germany.
Photo Markus Schreiber/AFP
On Sunday and Monday, Merz received Zelensky and the US delegation led by Witkoff and Kushner at the Kanzleramt in Berlin. Witkoff is a real estate agent, Donald Trump’s “special envoy for peacekeeping missions” and co-author of the controversial 28-point plan that the US drew up together with Russia. After the peace plan was leaked, Merz was the first European leader to speak to Trump on the phone.
According to sources in German media, Merz feared that Trump would leave NATO
In Berlin, Witkoff met Zelensky for the first time, while Witkoff has already visited Russian President Vladimir Putin five times this year. Zelensky said at a press conference on Monday that he had hoped that the Americans would come to Kyiv to hear and see the Ukrainian perspective. “But I am grateful that they are here and that we are being heard,” Zelensky said. “Berlin is now the center of important diplomatic conversations and decisions.”
In Berlin, political analysts noted, Zelensky sat with Merz on one side of the negotiating table, the Americans on the other. “What we used to call the West was now negotiating with each other,” says political scientist Sauer. A day earlier, Merz said at the party conference of sister party CSU: “The Pax Americana is over.”
In Berlin, Zelensky sat with Merz on one side of the negotiating table, the Americans sat on the other side.
Photo handout via REUTERS
Plant is still small
It was clear to Merz well before the publication of the American National Security Strategy that Europe cannot count on the US. On the evening in February that Merz’s CDU won the Bundestag election he said on a talk show that “we are under immense pressure from both sides” and that it is “my absolute priority [is] to become independent from the US step by step.”
Five days later, President Donald Trump belittled Zelensky during his visit to the White House. According to sources in German media, Merz feared in those days that Trump would leave NATO. More than two weeks later, on Merz’s initiative, the ‘Schuldenbremse’ was reformed in such a way that Germany could take out unlimited loans for defense. In doing so, he broke an explicit election promise. Because Merz comes from the school of Wolfgang Schäuble, the embodiment of German budgetary discipline. Following Germany’s lead, more countries pledged to increase defense spending to 5 percent, and the alliance remained intact at the NATO summit this summer in The Hague.
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Three days after his election as chancellor, in May, Merz traveled by train with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to Kyiv. There they collectively called Trump, who pledged American support for sanctions against Russia if Moscow did not accept a ceasefire. That promise turned out to be short-lived.
Political scientist Sauer says: “For 24 hours there was the impression that Trump is on Europe’s side, then he dropped us again. That’s how it always goes. Merz has responded well to that as far as I’m concerned. His view is: ‘It went wrong this time, but we keep trying, because doing nothing is not an option.’”
The ‘family photo’ of the participants in the meeting that Merz organized this week in the Kanzleramt in Berlin.
Photo MARKUS SCHREIBER/ANP/EPA
The consultation between Zelensky, the Americans and the Europeans in Berlin is such a new attempt by Merz. The US has not promised anything in black and white, it is a “rapprochement attempt”, according to a senior German official. Merz himself said on Monday evening that there is a “chance for a real peace process. The plant is still small, but the chance is real.”
Too nationalistic project
Merz’s approach has also been criticized. One of his arguments for using Russian assets in Brussels is that Europe must demonstrate decisiveness and unity. He also uses that argument in his coalition: when he failed to secure a majority for a new pension law two weeks ago, Merz felt it necessary to point out to his fellow party members that a dissenting vote would destabilize the German government while Europe is threatened by Putin.
Greens leader Franziska Brantner said Merz has “weakened Germany’s position”
Merz is not doing well in his own country: his coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD is having difficulty reaching compromises and he is unable to get through the major reforms that Merz announced. The German economy is stagnating and the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has surpassed the CDU in the polls. Weekly Die Zeit stated in a comment that it is quite a sign of weakness to want to discipline one’s own coalition on all kinds of domestic issues with the threat of ‘Putin’ and ‘Trump’.
The opposition is also critical, and not just pro-Russian parties such as the AfD. MEP Marie-Agnes Strack Zimmermann (FDP) warned Merz against a too dominant German role: “The whole of Europe must be on Ukraine’s side.” said Strack-Zimmermann in the Tagesspiegel. “Putin and Trump’s attempts to divide Europe are more open than ever. The chancellor should not fall for them.” According to Strack-Zimmermann, the German leadership role should not come at the expense of European unity.
Greens chairman Franziska Brantner said in the FAZ that Merz is “weakening Germany’s position”, partly because he has said that he wants to build the “largest conventional army in Europe” in Germany. According to the Greens, this is too nationalistic a project and it should involve the strongest possible European army. The German Bundeswehr works very closely with many neighboring countries.
Second Zeitenwende
Shortly after the publication of the American security strategy, Merz’s party colleague Norbert Röttgen spoke of a “second Zeitenwende”, a second epochal reversal. The first Zeitenwende Chancellor Olaf Scholz had declared in 2022, the day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In concrete terms, this turnaround meant that Germany invested heavily in defense for the first time since the fall of the Wall in 1989, also with the support of traditionally pacifist parties such as the Greens.
The second Zeitenwende According to Röttgen, the US is no longer on Europe’s side for the first time since WWII. This touches on the identity of the Christian Democrats of Merz, who built post-war West Germany under a kind of American mentorship, and who also shifted many responsibilities to the US.
Now, as far as Merz is concerned, Europe must become independent from the US. The use of the frozen Russian assets is a crucial step for Merz. Greens politician Brantner also states that it would be a “capitulation” by Europe if the Russian money is not released in Brussels. That urgency is heard everywhere in Berlin. A senior official says: “There is no plan B. This week the fate of Europe will be sealed.”
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