Mr Merz said on election night that he hopes to form a government by Easter at the latest - and has ruled out a coalition with the AfD as part of a long-running mainstream party pact in Germany known as the “firewall”.
Friedrich Merz sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s chief confidante Elon Musk for meddling in the German election campaign after the tech billionaire publicly backed the far-right AfD, saying it was the only party that “can save Germany”.
In his first post-election interview, Mr Merz said: “I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers, and heads of EU states and for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the US, step by step.
The results released by the electoral authority showed Mr Merz’s Christian Democrats and the centre-left Social Democrats winning a combined majority of seats in the national legislature after small parties failed to make the electoral threshold.
The man set to become Germany’s next chancellor has blasted the Trump administration and urged Europe to distance itself from Washington as his conservative party was confirmed to have won the country’s general election.
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