The German chancellor is facing calls to resign from within his own party<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Freidrich Merz has reportedly canceled his planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New York, as his political future hangs in the balance after a landslide loss to the right-wing AfD in state elections.Merz was scheduled to travel to New York next week, where high-level meetings between world leaders kick off at UN headquarters. However, a German government source told Reuters on Tuesday that the trip had been canceled, as the chancellor\u2019s \u201cpresence is required in Berlin.\u201d
\nAccording to another source, Merz\u2019 Christian Democrats (CDU) have called a special meeting for Sunday.
\nThe CDU is reeling from its state election loss to the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt last week. The AfD secured 43.8% of the vote, with the CDU a distant second at 17.2%. Merz\u2019 party has been trailing the AfD in opinion polls for over a year, and an equally dismal performance is expected in elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin this weekend, where the CDU is polling at 7% and 20%, respectively.<\/p>\n
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Germany shows where Europe is heading<\/p>\n
Just over a year into his chancellorship, CDU members and the German public are losing confidence in Merz. Both Merz and his center-left predecessor, Olaf Scholz, have presided over a country in rapid industrial decline, with Germany\u2019s largest manufacturers \u2013 including Volkswagen and BASF \u2013 closing plants due to spiraling energy costs, a direct result of Berlin\u2019s self-imposed embargo on Russian oil and gas.
\nMerz has poured money into an ambitious rearmament program, promising last year to build \u201cthe strongest conventional army in Europe.\u201d Meanwhile, ordinary citizens have been told to work more and warned that the \u201cwelfare state as we have it today can no longer be financed.\u201d In May, Merz\u2019 government announced new social spending cuts and plans to raise the retirement age from 67 to 70.
\nMerz loses at home and abroad
\nOver the weekend, an INSA poll found that a majority of CDU voters no longer support the chancellor, while 78% of the general public disapprove of his leadership.
\nAs Merz\u2019 approval rating tanks at home, Germany\u2019s standing at the UN has diminished. In June, the country lost a bid for a temporary seat on the UN Security Council for the first time in history. Critics blamed Berlin\u2019s iron-clad support for Israel \u2013 with the German government going as far as describing Israeli strikes on Palestinian schools as \u201cself-defense\u201d \u2013 coupled with fierce opposition to Russia, a position that appeared hypocritical to the Global South.<\/p>\n
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AfD files criminal complaint against Merz<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to Russia, international law counts, but when it comes to the USA and Israel, it doesn\u2019t,\u201d left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht told the Berliner Zeitung at the time. \u201cThis double standard was voted out by the international community yesterday.\u201d
\nBack in Germany, Merz has vowed to stay the course. After promising to unveil measures to lower fuel costs \u201cvery soon,\u201d the chancellor said on Tuesday that he was \u201celected for four years, and I would like us to use these four years to steer the country out of \u200bthis difficult period.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The German chancellor is facing calls to resign from within his own party German Chancellor Freidrich Merz has reportedly canceled his planned trip to the UN General Assembly in New…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t