The triumph was not quite what he had hoped for. But, at 69, Friedrich Merz should, barring a dramatic turn of events, fulfill the dream he has nurtured since the start of his political career when he joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1972, aged just 17. The tall, austere-looking, angular-faced lawyer will become the 10th chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany in the coming weeks. He will be confronted with a reality that none of his predecessors has experienced: the estrangement and even hostility of the United States.
"My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we gradually achieve true independence from the United States. I never thought I'd have to say such a thing on television," he admitted on Sunday. "Since Donald Trump's statements last week, it has become clear that the Americans, or at least this part of the Americans, this government, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe. I'm very curious to see what trajectory we'll take between now and the NATO summit at the end of June, whether we'll still be talking about NATO in its current form, or whether we'll have to establish an autonomous European defense capability much more quickly. That's an absolute priority for me, and I have absolutely no illusions about what's happening in America today."
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