After the federal election: Europe hopes for German leadership

In Brussels, expectations of Friedrich Merz are overwhelming. He gets along well with Emmanuel Macron. Many hope that Berlin will take on a leadership role alongside Paris and that both will rally the Europeans behind them.

The polling stations had just closed two and a half hours ago when seven and a half million Germans watched Friedrich Merz transform live on television. Berlin Round, Merz in the middle, an ideal transatlanticist, chairman of the elite Atlantic Bridge Friends' Circle for ten years until 2019, formerly a lawyer in the service of the US law firm Mayer Brown and a member of the supervisory board of the German division of the New York asset manager Blackrock. This man now said: "For me, it will be an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can really achieve independence from the USA step by step."