Friedrich Merz and his conservatives view Angela Merkel’s legacy as a liability in their battle with the far right.

It was a defining image of the Merkel years: the German chancellor leaning across a table at the G7 summit in 2018, looming over Donald Trump as the rest of the world’s leaders looked on. Angela Merkel, the photo seemed to indicate, was the adult in the room.

Germany's main opposition leader vowed on Thursday to impose immediate border controls if he becomes chancellor, as expected, after elections next month, a day after an Afghan asylum seeker was arrested for a deadly knife attack targeting children.

The former German chancellor governed in turbulent times: the financial crisis, Russian aggression in Ukraine, Covid and beyond.

Ahead of Germany's February election, opposition leader Friedrich Merz advocates stringent border controls and faster deportations following a fatal knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker. Tensions rise as Merz targets perceived failures in Germany's migration policy,

German voters head to the polls in a winter election next month, but likely will not have a new government until well into the spring.

Angela Merkel served as chancellor of Germany for four consecutive four-year terms, from 2005 to 2021. Only Helmut Kohl had a longer stint at the helm of a democratic Deutschland—and he was in ...

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives during a reception of the North Rhine-Westphalian Christian Democratic Union, CDU, in Duesseldorf, Germany, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025, ahead of the federal

Merz, whose centre-right bloc currently tops the polls, is toughening his stance on migration ahead of federal elections next month. View on euronews

Germany’s opposition leader has vowed to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected as chancellor next month

W HAT DO Angela Merkel, Olaf Scholz, the Bundesbank, the imf, the OECD, Germany’s biggest trade union, its state-appointed council of economic experts and most of its European allies have in common? Not much, on the face of it. But they all share the view that Germany’s “debt brake” is no longer serving the country well.

In Germany, a toxic national debate on Muslims and immigration has fueled the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. Polling second place ahead of February’s federal elections, mainstream parties are increasingly playing into its rhetoric.