SPD leader slams Chancellor Merz's impulsive leadership in public rebuke
BERLIN—Just when observers think the center-right coalition might finally get down to business, another explosion rocks the partnership. Now, SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch has launched a fresh broadside against Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), escalating the governing partners' long-running feud.
Speaking at an event Wednesday evening in Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia, the Social Democrat openly questioned whether the CDU leader has what it takes to be chancellor—a new low in the coalition's bitter infighting. As reported by local outlet Rundblick Unna, Miersch dismissed Merz as "a huge problem because he's such an impulsive person."
The 57-year-old then cited specific examples of what he claimed were the chancellor's outbursts—though curiously, he omitted the alleged shouting match with SPD leader Lars Klingbeil (previously reported by Junge Freiheit). Instead, Miersch focused on Merz's political statements.
Merz Praises High Earners
Miersch took particular issue with Merz's call for "respect for top earners"—a remark that stands in stark contrast to recent comments by SPD co-leader and Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, who urged workers to "fight" employers. He also criticized the chancellor's description of pensions as merely "basic provision."
Both statements had left him furious, Rundblick Unna quoted Miersch as saying. He concluded: "You simply can't govern like this." This marks the first time the SPD has openly denied Merz's fitness to lead—something that, in normal circumstances, would be grounds for immediately dissolving the coalition.
Miersch acknowledged that his party had "shouldered responsibility for a very long time" but had never fully achieved its goals, blaming the constraints of coalition politics—both in the current traffic-light government and the previous center-right alliance. Still, he praised the SPD's role in pushing through the €500 billion "special fund" for infrastructure, calling it the largest debt Germany has taken on since the empire's founding in 1871.
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