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The leader of the centre-right CDU, Friedrich Merz, will soon announce his bid to run for chancellor, German media reported on Sunday, making him the likely main challenger to Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The CDU has been leading the polls consistently since the spring of 2022, at about 30%, far ahead of Scholz’s SPD, which lies in third place with around 15%.
One year earlier, the CDU lost the national elections to the SPD after the party’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, decided not to run a fifth time.
Merz intends to announce his bid to head the party’s 2025 campaign after the regional elections in Brandenburg on 22 September, according to information from Bild am Sonntag.
The leadership of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, CSU, will reportedly meet on the day after the election to decide and announce it by 3 October at the latest.
Prior to this, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU/EPP) and the Prime Minister of North Rhine Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (CDU/EPP), were also said to be interested in running for the party. But recently, CDU leader Merz had started to emerge as a favourite, with Bild am Sonntag reporting that Söder and Wüst would not publicly challenge Merz.
Merz teases tour of European capitals
According to Bild am Sonntag, Merz is planning to visit Germany's neighbouring European countries, such as France and Poland. He would not be travelling there as party leader but as a candidate for chancellor. This may include French President Emmanuel Macron after Merz repeatedly criticised Scholz for Germany’s troubled relationship with France.Merz already met Macron for a one-on-one conversation in Paris last year in December, telling journalists afterwards that the two men “immediately had a good rapport.” He has also visited Sweden (January 2024) and Poland (July 2022), amongst others.
[Edited by Alice Taylor-Braçe]
