Everything was supposed to get better: The day after his election as German chancellor, Friedrich Merz boarded a plane to Paris, and later to Warsaw. The message was clear: Germany is back on the European stage and wants to improve relations with its key European Union partners. Following the collapse of the previous coalition of center-left Social Democrats, Greens, and pro-business Free Democrats, and the Olaf Scholz years, which were marked by hesitation, Brussels was hoping for a clearer, more coherent German voice. And the situation demanded it: war, economic stagnation, and the erosion of the multilateral order. Expectations for Berlin were high.
Perhaps too high. One year later, Merz is regarded as incapable of leading Europe. He lacks a feel for the European process, it is said, and all too often the ability to engage partners. Yet what sometimes appears to be an oversight or poor execution is a deliberate strategy driven by the conviction that European processes have become too slow to meet the challenges of our time. The eagerness to move fast on European policy is a feature, not a bug—part of Berlin’s new approach to EU politics, not a slip.
The Contours of German Leadership
Already during the election campaign, Merz made his promise to lead Europe a central issue. Fond of referring to his early days in the European Parliament, the chancellor-designate saw himself as a staunch European who would lead Germany back onto the international and European stage. Europe is waiting for Germany to “once again make a powerful contribution to the success of the European project,” Merz declared at the signing of the coalition agreement.
A little over a year later, the contours of this new German leadership role are taking shape. Merz sees it as Germany’s task to build a stronger Europe, which for him means, above all, improving competitiveness and strengthening Europe’s defense capabilities. Only through economic and security strength, he believes, can Europe hold its own in today’s world. At the same time, he positions Germany squarely at the heart of Europe: “If Europe falls apart, Germany falls apart,” the chancellor declared at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026.
Yet as much as Merz insists on a strong Europe with Germany at its center, his skepticism toward the European Union as it actually exists is just as pronounced. To Merz, the EU institutions in particular appear as an obstacle to efficiency. “The integration model has, for the time being, reached its limits with 27 member states,” he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in October 2025; now, “Cooperation between governments matters much more.” The chancellor wants to shape European policy and strengthen the EU, yet finds the EU framework downright irritating.
Results-Oriented European Policy
This is a new development. Under Friedrich Merz, German policy toward Europe is shifting to focus more on results, speed, and flexible formats. This sets it apart from previous German approaches, which sought to advance European integration primarily within the framework of all member states and the common institutions. For Merz, the institutional framework within which European decisions are taken is less important; what matters more is whether they lead to concrete results.
Merz’ understanding of European cooperation is based largely on close exchanges with other heads of state and government. Particularly in security and defense policy, which is inherently intergovernmental, the chancellor relies heavily on smaller formats. The appeal of this approach is obvious: It brings together states that are ready to act and speeds up decision-making without having to wait for all 27 member states. This enables Berlin to set the agenda with like-minded countries, while at the same time involving non-EU countries such as the United Kingdom.
The German government is increasingly engaging in the E3 format with France and the United Kingdom, which has taken a leading role, for example, in dealing with the Trump administration and the Ukraine issue. Many other formats have been added, ranging from the E6 group of finance ministers to the E5 framework of defense ministers and the Weimar Plus format. Not all of them are led by Merz, but what they all have in common is that they are intended to move issues forward more quickly when a solution involving all 27 member states seems too difficult to achieve.
Merz, however, is seeking to accelerate the process not only through flexible formats but also through his own initiatives, particularly on Ukraine. In a newspaper op-ed published in September 2025, for example, he proposed using Russian state assets frozen in the EU to finance Ukraine. This initiative was important because securing long-term funding for aid to Ukraine without overburdening European budgets is one of the most pressing security policy challenges for the EU. The same applies to the German chancellor’s proposal in May 2026 to offer Ukraine associate EU membership. Ukraine needs a credible prospect of accession, but full membership remains difficult to achieve politically, institutionally, and financially for the foreseeable future. The search for interim solutions is therefore essential.
What both debates have in common is that Merz is pushing initiatives that he considers politically necessary, even if their chances of success remain uncertain. In the case of Russian assets, despite all his efforts, Merz failed due to resistance from Belgium. In the end, the member states agreed on a different solution—a debt package to finance Ukraine.
This is where the limitations of Merz’ approach become apparent. However necessary greater speed may be, willingness to coordinate positions in advance and build majorities is just as important. Otherwise, even the best idea will come to nothing. After all, European policy is not shaped by opinion pieces in the Financial Times. Similarly, the use of flexible formats in smaller groups may well work in foreign and security policy, a field traditionally characterized by intergovernmental cooperation. But when it comes to internal market integration or trade policy, which are central to European competitiveness, this approach reaches its limits. The single market is based on the same rules applying everywhere. Integration in small groups, without all member states and without the EU institutions, runs counter to its fundamental principle and leads to fragmentation rather than speed.
More serious still, Berlin, in the name of efficiency, is coming into increasingly sharp conflict with the EU’s rules and institutions.
Brussels as Obstacle
Alongside Merz’ commitment to a strong Europe lies a deep skepticism toward the EU’s common procedures and institutions. Merz’ statement that the “community method” has “failed” is directed not least at the EU institutions, whose task he seems to see, above all, as not slowing down decisions made by member states. He has little patience for those who take actions that run counter to this logic.
He is visibly frustrated when, for example, the European Parliament, which is not bound by the European Council’s directives, makes decisions contrary to his wishes. Thus, after the provisional failure of the “Omnibus I” package to simplify EU sustainability rules in October 2025, he demanded that the European Parliament reconsider its decision. This undermines the institutional logic of the EU, in which the European Parliament is not an extension of national governments.
It is the European Commission, however, that Merz particularly has in his sights, considering it too slow on competitiveness—an issue central to his agenda. When it comes to cutting red tape, the European Commission becomes the scapegoat. In the German debate, he likes to pin the blame for the stagnating economy on it, painting a picture of an out-of-control regulatory monster that needs to be reined in immediately. He’s not alone in this stance in Berlin. Despite far-reaching omnibus packages, his party even went so far as to briefly consider threatening to cut Germany’s EU contribution if the European Commission did not simplify European rules more quickly.
Moves like these not only unnecessarily undermine the legitimacy of the European Commission; the underlying analysis is also misleading. Germany’s weak growth is not solely the result of European overregulation, but rather a consequence of profound changes in the global economy: energy shocks, Chinese overcapacity, and trade conflicts. Anyone suggesting that an economic recovery depends solely on reducing bureaucracy—and that this, in turn, depends solely on the European Commission—not only raises expectations that cannot be met but also undermines the EU institutions.
An even more serious tension between the logic of efficiency and the common EU framework becomes apparent where EU law appears to stand in the way of swift action, for example, in migration policy. To curb immigration, Schengen internal border controls have been introduced in Germany, and those seeking protection are being turned away at the border.
Whatever one’s stance on migration, the real issue here is Germany’s relationship with European law. With its actions, Berlin is not only snubbing its European neighbors but also raising serious questions under European law. Permanent border controls are at odds with the spirit and functioning of the Schengen Area; several German courts have already ruled them inadmissible under European law.
Both narratives, that of EU institutions hindering efficiency and that of EU law as a nuisance, serve to strengthen, not least, those Euroskeptic forces that are threatening to undermine the EU’s ability to act in the long term. Moreover, they rattle two cornerstones of European integration: trust in the shared institutions and the binding nature of jointly adopted laws. Both are the very foundation on which the EU functions in the first place. A German government that undermines them betrays its own claim to leadership.
Leading Europe
Merz wants to take on a greater leadership role in Europe, but his method is not working. Worse still: It is undermining the very foundation of the EU he claims to want to strengthen. The chancellor must find a leadership role that goes beyond the mere will to lead. That also means involving partners, rather than treating European policy as an extension of German domestic policy. Merz has the ambition to lead. But not yet the willingness to do what leadership demands.
—Translated from the German by Kate Brown
Thu Nguyen is the Acting Co-Director of the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin.
