Merz says he has party backing to stay on as German chancellor

Arne Delfs, Bloomberg News on Sep 21, 2026

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Chancellor Friedrich Merz reinforced his message that he’ll see through his reform agenda as Germany’s leader after his Christian Democratic Union crashed out of a regional parliament for the first time in the country’s post-World War II history.

The election debacle in the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — where the CDU took less than 5% of the vote on Sunday — caps a month of losses at the hands of the far-right Alternative for Germany. The setbacks have stoked mounting calls within the conservative party for Merz to step aside.

Merz said he secured his party’s backing to stay on after he gathered the CDU’s leadership in Berlin to gauge his position — and extended an offer to the Social Democrats to continue their 16-month coalition as it seeks to implement an overhaul of Germany’s pension, health and tax systems.

“We want to move the reform process forward, but we want to offer answers for people and their concerns,” Merz told reporters on Monday, adding that no members of the leadership began a “personnel discussion” in the closed-door gathering.

The 70-year-old chancellor has been on a rapid downward spiral, already the least-popular German leader after over a year in office. Though he kicked off his tenure with a spending splurge on defense and infrastructure, he’s struggled to pass reforms to boost the economy, which has suffered from years of stagnation.

During campaigning, he’s largely been kept away from voters, reinforcing the view that he’s out of touch with citizens.

Germany’s political establishment was already shaken when the CDU suffered a stunning defeat to the AfD two weeks ago in Saxony-Anhalt, another eastern state, where it could lead the first far-right government in the country since its foundation in 1949.

—With assistance from Michael Nienaber.