is on the second stage of his introductory tour abroad, this time with a trip to Brussels for meetings with European Union and NATO chiefs.
Merz, who has long been critical of his , has said he aims to end Germany’s “speechlessness” on European policy.
The new chancellor plans to meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the three top EU representatives: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President António Costa, and Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
Merz had already completed his first inaugural visits to Paris and Warsaw on Wednesday.
At the signing of the coalition agreement between the conservative CDU-CSU and the SPD, the CDU leader announced that he and his government would ensure that Germany’s “voice is heard again in Europe and in the world.”
“Large parts of Europe, and the European Union in particular, are waiting for us to once again make a powerful contribution to the success of the European project,” Merz said.
As opposition leader, conservative Merz accused his center-left predecessor, Olaf Scholz, of passivity in European policy and promised to end Germany’s inarticulateness on European policy.
In close cooperation with neighboring France and Poland, he wants to strengthen European sovereignty and thus respond to the US’s foreign policy shift under .
In recent years, there has been repeated criticism that Scholz’s “traffic light” coalition often took a long time to position itself on important projects such as the reform of the European asylum system.
Even greater incomprehension was caused when no agreement was reached in Berlin between the SPD, the Greens, and the FDP, and Germany therefore abstained from EU votes for example, on the .
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