The new German chancellor began his mandate with a scare, because his name was called in the first round of the Bundestag elections for only six votes on Tuesday morning. But at the end of the afternoon, the second was forever. The next day, he traveled to Paris and Warsaw to relaunch the “Weimar triangle” that is called that.
Symbolically, Merz first met with Macron, went to Poland, and at the end of the week he traveled to Brussels to meet with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council António Costa.
Can Friedrich Merz have political strength to boost its economy and the European Union?
Mónica Vicente Cristina, a member of the Portuguese Board and General Director of Weber Shandwick in Brussels, believes: “Merz has great ambitions to revive the Franco-German motor, but how long will you have to dedicate completely to European problems, knowing that you have great challenges too?”
Paulo Dentinho, RTP correspondent in Brussels, argues that Europe must be Merz’s priority: “After this initial bad management, I think it will have enough strength to take the mission onwards … Europe, the European project, needs a strong Germany and also needs a strong France.”
But Merz’s main internal challenge will be political and social, for Pedro Ribeiro, a member of the regions committee and mayor of Almeirim: “The way there is, to end the profits that AFD has had, is to take the speech with them. And that is to solve problems to people. Sometimes we seek great solutions and solutions are not great solutions.
In this edition of “Brussels, My Love?”, The debate also extended to the new political scenario in Romania and the European lessons of the Iberian blackout.
