In the early hours of Friday, Germany’s Greens were given a choice: Would they veto a game-changing spending plan over ...

Many had painted faces, and there was no shortage of beer. Merz was in celebratory mood too as he traveled to Brussels on March 6 and was garlanded by European leaders, before returning to work on ...

Chancellor-designate faces opposition in his own party and a delicate balance in reconvened Bundestag, which must approve ...

Merz will have to assemble a coalition government ... rules such that a tax return could be calculated on the back of a beer mat. His party’s 2025 manifesto argued for deregulation and tax ...

Friedrich Merz -- who once famously argued a tax return should fit onto a beer coaster -- has vowed to go to war against the “bureaucracy monster”. Mr. Merz and others want to free companies ...

Merz, whose centre-right CDU/CSU alliance is far ahead in the polls, famously wrote down his tax proposals on the coaster in 2003, when he was challenging former chancellor Angela Merkel for the ...

Already, Merz has pledged to increase defense spending and put Paris, Warsaw, and London at the lead of a new policy to shore ...

That led to the election being held seven months ahead of schedule. At a closing rally in a Munich beer hall, Merz told supporters that “three years in opposition are enough.” Germany is a ...

fit on a beer tap. In 2008, the year of the global financial crisis, Merz published a book arguing that Germany should cut back its welfare state, deregulate its economy, and encourage people to ...

That led to the election being held seven months ahead of schedule. At a closing rally in a Munich beer hall, Merz told supporters that “three years in opposition are enough.” Germany is a ...

Merz slammed what he called “interference from ... grilled meat, potato salad and beer. The AfD has been in second place in pre-election polls, but no other German party will invite it into ...