Far-right surge puts Merz’s coalition on the clock to deliver – POLITICO

BERLIN — In Friedrich Merz’s telling, it’s not just his chancellorship that’s on the line — but the future of the German republic.

Merz and the leaders of his conservative-led government have vowed to agree on a series of urgent and long-delayed reforms on everything from the tax and pension systems to long-term care insurance in the coming weeks. The self-imposed deadline is intended to demonstrate that Germany’s ideologically divided coalition can come together to govern ahead of two elections set for September in states of the former East Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is far ahead in polls.

Both contests have taken outsized significance in Germany, where they’re widely seen not only as critical tests of the current government’s standing — but also of the resilience of German democracy 36 years after the country’s reunification. By the time voters go to polls in September, Merz says, his government needs to have shown that it’s capable of acting to restore economic growth and, more broadly, trust in the political mainstream.