Overview
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke at a summer press conference on July 15 and said the coalition has made measurable progress on overdue reforms while conceding it is not yet at its goal.
- The government highlighted recently passed measures including an Infrastructure Future Act and a major statutory health‑insurance reform, and it is pursuing repeated Entlastungskabinett meetings to cut bureaucracy.
- Merz confirmed there will be no reform of the constitutional debt brake this year because the commission and the government have not reached agreement.
- He pledged to “do everything” to prevent the AfD from governing, affirmed party rules that bar cooperation with the AfD and Die Linke, and said tactical choices about post‑election coalitions will be decided only after the September 6 vote.
- Merz pointed to new security steps — a trilateral submarine agreement with Canada and Norway, the Koalition der Willigen support for Ukraine, and a National Security Council in the Chancellery — and acknowledged that bypassing the debt brake for defence has strained his personal credibility while he recalibrates communication amid low approval ratings.