The interference from Washington in the German election campaign had been “no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow”, Merz said, referring to Elon Musk’s ever more frenzied support for the far-right AfD, and to the polemics of the US vice-president, JD Vance, against the CDU’s “firewall” policy, which excludes cooperating with the Putin-friendly party.
Germany was under “massive pressure from two sides”, and Donald Trump’s government was “largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”, Merz said, warning that it was unclear whether, by the Nato summit in June, “we will still be talking about Nato in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly”.
There is an irony here in that Merz had tried his own brand of Trumpism just weeks ago, when he reacted to a string of violent attacks in Germany with the announcement of a tough migration policy that he would enact “on day one” of his chancellorship.
It would be his “absolute priority”, Merz said, immediately after victory for the CDU/CSU was confirmed, to create unity in Europe as quickly as possible, “so that, step by step, we can achieve independence from the US”.
Even more intrusive were Vance’s repeated statements linking the CDU’s firewall policy, which keeps the AfD out of power, with the US security guarantee for Europe.
