Friedrich Merz

November 11, 1955

Friedrich Merz (born 1955) is a German politician who has served as Chancellor of Germany since 6 May 2025. He has served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since January 2022, and led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group as Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag from February 2022 to May 2025.

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Biography

Friedrich Merz was born in Brilon, North Rhine-Westphalia, on 11 November 1955, the son of a judge. He joined the CDU's youth wing in 1972, did military service in an artillery unit in 1975–1976 and studied law at the universities of Bonn and Marburg. After qualifying in 1985 he briefly served as a district court judge in Saarbrücken and then worked as a lawyer for the German Chemical Industry Association.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 1989 and to the Bundestag in 1994, where he made his name as the CDU's leading financial policy expert. In 2000 he became chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and so leader of the opposition to Gerhard Schröder's government, but after the 2002 election Angela Merkel took over the group and he became her deputy. He gave up that post in 2004, left the Bundestag in 2009 and turned to business law, working as senior counsel at Mayer Brown, chairing the supervisory board of BlackRock Germany and heading the Atlantik-Brücke association.

He returned to politics in 2018 and lost bids for the CDU leadership in 2018 and January 2021 before winning a members' vote in December 2021; he took over as party leader in January 2022 and, back in the Bundestag since 2021, led the opposition to Olaf Scholz's government. The CDU/CSU came first in the February 2025 federal election, and on 6 May 2025 Merz was elected chancellor at the head of a coalition with the SPD, needing a second round of voting, a first in German history. He is a firm supporter of the European Union and NATO, and his government has focused on fiscal discipline, border control and welfare reform.