Chancellor

Alexander, let's just talk about the context, the broader context in which this has been occurring.

Uh, the contemporary political use of the term, which we just mentioned, Staatsraison, uh, reason of state in Germany, uh, the way it's being used now was reportedly coined by Chancellor, uh, Angela Merkel during a historic speech to the Israeli, uh, Knesset in March two thousand eight.

So could you talk about what exactly was going on then, and what prompted Merkel, uh, to speak specifically of this to the Knesset?

Yes.

I think whatever he does, some people are going to criticise him, but he does have to make a decision.

Plenty for John Healy's thoughts, though, the Chancellor, because after he resigned from Keir Starmer's government because he accused Keir Starmer of not backing defence, Now he's in a situation where he's got to look beyond the couch to try and raise money for everything, including defence as well.

I mean, he's had a very low profile since his appointment, hasn't he? I know he's quite studious.

What's your take on John Healy?

And I think that's why he made Miliband Foreign Secretary.

You know, Miliband is a frustrated Prime Minister, isn't he? He wanted to leave the show.

He, I think, expected or hoped to become Chancellor and that didn't happen.

therefore I think the payoff would have been to say to Ed Miliband right well I'm going to give you the foreign secretaries post big role and actually on the world stage I want you to drive our policy and so you've seen that particularly I suppose in terms of the Middle East policy in the announcement they made recently over Israel and Gaza so I think that Andy is being very clear that he wanted to focus very much on domestic policy I think he was very aware of the never hear Kia tag and he doesn't want to get drawn into international affairs and onto these international trips every couple of weeks it's just not what he's interested in in a sense but equally He's right in thinking that the electors out there want to see the prime minister roll the sleeves up and get stuck into the issues that we've already talked about.

Delivering the worst result

for Chancellor Friedrich Merz's mainstream conservative party since 1949.

The chancellor, Merce, after the exit polls were published, said, quote,

it's a disaster,

So it looks like they are going to, the AFD is going to win 38.3% of the vote in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

That means they would beat the center-left Social Democrats at 35.4%.

And both of those parties, those two parties, were way ahead of the Chancellor's Conservative Party, Merz's Conservative Party.

Wow.

Wasn't there anyone in the party to pull Mertz aside and say, look, Mr.

Chancellor, you got to stop.

You got to stop with this de-industrialization talk.

You got to stop with this military industrial complex nonsense.

Germany's far-right AfD comes top again, this time in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Friedrich Merz's CDU not even able to make the 5% threshold needed to enter the state parliament, as the Chancellor concedes the seriousness of the defeat.

We can't sugarcoat the result in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

It's a disaster.

I don't know if they're invited to the dinner, but they're going to sit down anyway with the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant later today.

That conversation coming up at 1300 London time.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has vowed to continue as Chancellor and press ahead with the country's reforms after what he described as a disastrous showing for his CDU party in state elections over the weekend.

The far-right Alternative for Deutschland party took first place in state elections in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Let's turn now to Germany, where the resounding victory of the far-right party, the AfD, in a regional election this week has sparked alarm.

It rejects comparisons with the Nazis, but in a stormy debate in the German parliament, the Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, clashed with the AfD leader, Alice Weidel, saying her party's migration policies amounted to ethnic cleansing that would affect millions of workers.

Ms. Weidel dismissed the claims and told the Bundestag that the days of the Merz coalition were over.

Mr.

Chancellor, the voters in Saxony-Anhalt have made it crystal clear to you in the language of the democratic sovereign, your coalition is done.

People finally want a change of policy, and they do not want more of the same.

With more on what she had to say, here's our reporter, Joanna Keane.

And he now has, uh, some 44%, so he's the resounding winner, and all other parties together have about the same.

And, um, we are all waiting with bated breath whether he will manage to get together those three seats in parliament that he needs, either from the conservative CDU of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

This would be yet another body blow after this defeat of his CDU party recently if some individual MPs jumped ship.

That's the overarching question at this moment in time.

So let's just hear what the chancellor answered.

Mr.

Chancellor, with the AfD's election victory, we've now seen that parties critical of Russia may soon be in the minority in Saxony-Anhalt and parties that question support for Ukraine may account for at least 50% of the vote together with the BSW.

How do you interpret this, and what implications does it have for your policies towards Russia and Ukraine?

Now, the problem here really is that Saxony and Halt is a state where even without an overall majority, the AFD are very strong.

So where does that leave the claims of democracy here and what might it mean otherwise? for Chancellor Merz and his Christian Democrats.

Bild's politics editor, Josef Foster, has been covering the campaign.

Josef, welcome to Brussels Playbook Weekender.

And I wondered if you had any theories about why that might be.

My impression of it is like the people who are there and voting for Siegmund or sympathizing with him, they really feel like kind of a movement and they want to change.

I felt there was a lot of anger and fury about the current government and especially Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

So he's very unpopular there.