Merz fails to secure majority to get elected chancellor
Friedrich Merz has failed to get enough votes to become chancellor in the first vote.
310 votes in favour. He needed 316.
Wow.
The session gets adjourned so political groups can consult on next steps.
Key events
Embarrassing setback for Merz – snap analysis
Jakub Krupa
The result will be hugely embarrassing setback for Merz.
His CDU/CSU/SPD coalition nominally has 328 votes in the Bundestag – but he got only 310; 18 less than you would expect him to get, and, crucially, six short of the majority required to confirm him as the next chancellor. The joys of secret ballot.
As German media note, this has never happened before in the history of the federal republic.
Merz fails to secure majority to get elected chancellor
Friedrich Merz has failed to get enough votes to become chancellor in the first vote.
310 votes in favour. He needed 316.
Wow.
The session gets adjourned so political groups can consult on next steps.
Bundestag votes on Merz – in pictures
Vote count under way
If you’re wondering why, oh, why is it all taking so much time, it’s because it’s a secret ballot, with all parliamentarians going out of the main chamber to the lobby to physically cast their vote.
The meeting has just been adjourned for 20-25 minutes as they count the votes.
No prizes for guessing how Merz voted.
What to expect in coming hours
If, as we expect, Merz gets elected in the first round of voting, the Bundestag session will be adjourned, and he will travel to see the country’s president Frank-Walter Steinmeier to get a certificate of his appointment.
He will then come back to the Bundestag to take the oath of office, and later formally confirm his ministerial appointments (both with the president and the parliament).
The formal takeover process is expected to be completed at 3pm.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The voting continues.
Vote to elect Merz as new German chancellor under way
And after some formal words of welcome, the vote on Friedrich Merz’s chancellorship is now under way.
316 votes are required, and it should be a formality given the CDU/CSU/SPD coalition has 328 MPs.
Former German chancellor Angela Merkel is there too.
Morning opening: Bundeskanzler Merz
Jakub Krupa
Some 70 days after winning the parliamentary election in February, CDU/CSU leader Friedrich Merz will finally become the new German chancellor today, taking over from embattled Olaf Scholz.
Last night, Scholz was given a formal send-off party – probably best described by the Economist’s Tom Nuttall as “think military parade crossed with Desert Island Discs and you’re halfway there” – leaving the office to the sounds of Bach, Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and the Beatles’ “In My Life.”
There will be time and place to properly sum up his term, acknowledging that whatever plans he may have had got quickly derailed by Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, three months into his chancellorship.
But today the focus will be on what’s next with a number of extremely urgent tasks facing the new chancellor, not just in international politics or the economy, but with the broader crisis of people’s trust that things work as they should.
In his farewell speech, summing up his three years holding the highest office in the country, Scholz said:
“Only if you (the German citizen) have confidence in democracy and its representatives can this democracy succeed. Earning this trust has always been the driving force behind my political commitment.”
Merz will need to figure out – and figure out fast – how to keep that democratic confidence alive at a time when the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, the main opposition party now formally designated as an extremist force, comes top in some of the public opinion polls.
The Bundestag will sit from 9am Berlin time (8am London) to formally appoint the new chancellor, and later to confirm the members of his government, with media rumours that the first cabinet meeting will take place this evening, ahead of Merz’s expected trips to Paris and Warsaw tomorrow.
We will bring you all the latest.
It’s Tuesday, 6 May 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
