With foreign policy turbulence, a blackout in Berlin and a high-profile personnel rejig in the Chancellery, 2026 is off to a stormy start for Friedrich Merz.
While Germans were asking how it was possible that about 100,000 people in Berlin were left without electricity and heating for several days after an attack on the power supply, Chancellor Friedrich Merz had his hands full with international crises.
Merz has been under pressure following the US intervention in Venezuela. His reaction to the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by the US military, was somewhat restrained and vague. The German chancellor described it as a "complex situation," also from a legal perspective, which the German government would now carefully examine.
That was all.
The words "breach of internatio
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