Chancellor Friedrich Merz's party has made a disappointing start to a year packed with German state elections, suffering a narrow defeat in an important industrial region after a prominent candidate powered the environmentalist Greens to a come-from-behind victory.
Mr. Merz said Monday (March 9, 2026) that his federal government, which has struggled to get Germany’s stagnant economy moving, will have to “manage more, and more substantially, in terms of the necessary reforms so that we in Germany can get out of this difficult economic situation.” The country has Europe's biggest economy.
Mr.
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