7d ago

Friedrich Merz’s Failed Quest to Be a New Angela Merkel

Much of Merz’s public reputation, particularly on the broad liberal and left-wing space, stems from this time out of the political spotlight. In particular, his role as chairman of the German division of BlackRock, the American asset management behemoth, is seen with a critical eye by most Germans. His close personal ties to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, as reported in a recent biography by Volker Resing, only add to the perception that Merz represents the financial elite more than the electorate.
Still, his advocates seek to reframe this association not as a liability but as a strength. His corporate entanglements are portrayed as proof of worldly competence, a business-minded sensibility absent from the typical career politician. “Through his many board positions,” write Jutta Falke-Ischinger and Daniel Goffart in their biography of Merz, “he gained a deep and novel insight into the economy.” Between 2007 and 2018, Merz served on at least nineteen corporate boards, from Commerzbank to BASF and the recycling giant Interseroh. Just as he was plotting his political comeback, his connections earned him millions and embedded him within Europe’s financial elite.
His proponents have tried to downplay the potential for conflicts of interest. Resing cites a corporate attorney familiar with Merz’s legal work who insists that “the substantive work was always done by others.” Merz, the implication goes, was more of a figurehead than an operative.

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7d ago

jacobin.com /2025/05/germany-merz-merkel-cdu-pragmatism

16 comments

Guy works for Black Rock and then makes his main policies:
decrease taxes for business and the rich
cutting public services to fund those tax cuts
increasing national debt to fund military contracts and tax cuts for the rich
And then he talks about how people need to work more, as if he's ever had a real job in his life or as if that's some good marker for a person. A good man wants to improve society for everyone, and working more efficiently (aka less hours, not more) is improvement.
Merz is a classic conservative, he wants to make everything worse for everyone but the rich and wealthy and pretend it's because he's business savvy. He'll sell this vision as necessary or for the economy or against the wave of invading foreigners, and all the while life will get worse for working Germans. For good people.
Don't get fooled, Merz and the CDU are bad for Germany in the same way Trump and Republicans are bad for the US (or insert your local conservative party of choice).

His entanglements with various lobby groups aside, Merz is just a terrible politician.
Merz is not a diplomat or negotiator he just wants to be the boss and give orders.
That is not how you get things done in a coalition government or in parliament.

Between 2007 and 2018, Merz served on at least nineteen corporate boards, from Commerzbank to BASF and the recycling giant Interseroh. Just as he was plotting his political comeback, his connections earned him millions and embedded him within Europe’s financial elite.
and in his entire "political career" did he ever had a leading government chair... PRIME chancellor material right there... The chair he sits on I mean.

- That's in fact false news.
  Correctiv.org (in German)
  
  It is somewhat misleading but not false. He did vote against it as the linked article also points out.
  English tl:dr for those interested: He did vote for an earlier proposal that would have made marital rape illegal but allowed potential victims to block an investigation.
  Critics feared that abusive spouses could force their victims to block investigations.
  That proposal ultimately failed, a new version without "veto" was proposed, Merz voted against but it ultimately passed.
  
  Oh, yeah, he voted for the earlier version in which an abusive husband could beat up his wife until she retracted her accusations. That totally absolves him. Not.

Given that Angela Merkel is at least partly if not wholly responsible for the majority of the geopolitical problems the EU is struggling with right now, fuck this guy.
- Angela Merkel protected us from this guy for 16 years. If she did nothing else she should get a medal for that alone.
  
  I'll be honest, I completely believe that there is always someone worse Germany can put in charge, but the mismanagement of the 2015 refugee crisis, the mismanagement of the Orbán and Putin regimes all came from Merkel, and both the invasion of Ukraine and the erosion of democracy in Eastern Europe can be traced to those decisions made by Merkel.
  Those decisions, by the way, have been taken to provide German industry with cheap resources and workers at the expense of workers' welfare in Germany, Eastern Europe, and the safety of Europe at large from Russia.
  So yeah, fuck Angela Merkel for making sure Orbán got unlimited EU money in exchange for things like this. And fuck Angela Merkel for appeasing Putin despite it being obvious that he will keep starting wars after Chechnya and Georgia. And fuck Angela Merkel for doing her "Wilkommenskultur" bit while doing fuck all for both the refugees at the border and the countries that were supposed to hold the border.
  And fuck Friedrich "Zweite Mal" Merz too.

16 comments