A narrow win on pensions is testing Merz' leadership

By forcing through a stopgap reform, the German chancellor is buying time — but leaving long-term sustainability concerns unresolved.

Dear Reader,

In the days before Friday’s Bundestag vote on Germany’s contentious Rentenpaket (pension package), Chancellor Friedrich Merz wasted little time -- or rhetorical restraint.

In internal talks and public remarks in the run-up to the debate, Merz warned that failure by his own party to back the package “would destabilise Germany and Europe.” He cast the vote as an implicit test not only of his authority, but of Germany’s political reliability at a precarious moment. Should the bill collapse, so too could the coalition — handing fresh ammunition to a hard-right, euro-sceptic AfD that is already polling ahead of the CDU for the first time nationwide.

That logic led to a frantic final push. Merz held a series of closed-door meetings with leaders from the CDU and its centre-left coalition partner, the SPD, raced to contain internal rebellions, and personally courted sceptics in the CDU’s youth wing, the Junge Union (JU), urging them to drop their objections and fall into line.

The me…