'Once a Davos Man, always a Davos Man.' Liesa Johannssen/Getty.
At the ripe age of 69, Friedrich Merz has waited decades for this moment. Ahead of Sunday’s election, he is Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, with his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) predicted to secure 30% of the vote. He’ll have to cobble together another coalition of disparate parties, but Merz won’t mind. Come Monday morning, he will have completed one of the most remarkable comebacks in recent political history.
Merz joined the party decades ago as a student. But today, he is effectively running on a “Make Germany Great Again” platform — a calculated attempt to win votes from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) by shifting his party to the Right on issues such as immigration. His cynicism here shouldn’t be underestimated: like Donald Trump in America, the millionaire Merz is a corporate king in conservative clothing.
Merz, let’s not forget, has long represented the interests of some of the world’s most powerful corporate and financial elites, most notably as a key representative of BlackRock in Germany between 2016 and 2020. Indeed, if Merz is elected, Germany will become the first country to be ruled by a former BlackRock official. But his ties to elite institutions go back much further: for over two decades, even before joining BlackRock, he embodied the revolving door between politics, business and finance.
After the 2002 federal election, Angela Merkel, the then-leader of the CDU, secured the chairmanship of the parliamentary group, while Merz was appointed as her deputy. Their relationship, however, was far from breezy, and Merz resigned just two years later, gradually withdrawing from politics until he left parliament in 2009. Yet he struck gold even before his departure. In 2004, he was hired as senior counsel by the international law and lobbying firm Mayer Brown, a heavyweight in the industry with an annual turnover of billions.
Here, Merz discovered a far more fruitful relationship. As Werner Rügemer, author of BlackRock Germany, explains, at Mayer Brown Merz helped facilitate deals that promoted the interests of US capital in Germany, encouraging American investors to buy companies in the Federal Republic. The result was the sale and restructuring of thousands of German firms, which involved slashing jobs and freezing wages — an approach openly praised by Merz in his book Dare to Be More Capitalist. No doubt keen to embody his book’s thesis, during this period Merz also sat on the supervisory and administrative boards of several major corporations. And then BlackRock, arguably one of the most powerful companies to ever exist, came knocking. How could Merz say no? Pharmaceuticals, entertainment, media and, of course, war — there is virtually no sector that BlackRock won’t try and profit from.
The attraction of hiring Merz isn’t hard to glean. He facilitated meetings between BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and German politicians, helping to shape the policies that would benefit the company and its vast portfolio of investments. Under Merz’s influence, for instance, BlackRock became one of the largest non-German shareholders in many of the country’s most important companies — from Deutsche Bank to Volkswagen, BMW to Siemens. Yet his work wasn’t just about increasing profits for shareholders; it was also about shaping a political environment where corporate interests were aligned with government policy. By happy coincidence, it also created a climate in which someone like Merz could easily flit between big business and the Bundestag.
And so it came to pass in 2021, when Merz, armed with a bulging bank balance and two private jets, returned to politics as the leader of the CDU. Unsurprisingly, his political philosophy is firmly rooted in neoliberalism. He is a vocal proponent of privatisation and deregulation. This is often couched in promises to reduce bureaucracy and attract foreign investors. But, in reality, this corporate doublespeak is designed to mask his emphasis on private-sector solutions to public problems. Merz is a strong supporter of the privatisation of social welfare systems — to the benefit of companies such as BlackRock, a leader in private pension schemes. He has also traditionally been a staunch opponent of the minimum wage and of laws against unfair dismissal. Under his watch, German workers are very likely to see their wages continue to stagnate, or worse.
But then it’s hard to truly believe that ordinary Germans are Merz’s concern. Once a Davos Man, always a Davos Man — and his long history of representing powerful industries, including the chemical, financial and metallurgic sectors, suggests he will have other priorities. As chancellor, for instance, Merz could be called upon to regulate sectors with which he has long been associated — and which Mayer Brown, his former employer, still represents.
Recall, too, that under Merz’s leadership the CDU has received millions of euros in campaign donations from the very business interests he represented in the past — more than any other party. For both German and global corporate lobbyists, then, having Merz — a former colleague — as chancellor would be a dream come true. Or, as Rügemer puts it: “This is putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”
Nor is this simply a matter of economics: Merz’s corporate connections shape his foreign policy as well. At heart, he’s a staunch Atlanticist, and a firm believer in America’s role as the guarantor of the global order. This ideological stance has led Merz to align with the US on issues such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, calling for the project’s cancellation long before the escalation of the Ukraine crisis. His hawkish position on foreign policy, particularly around his muscular support for Ukraine, further illustrated his alignment with America’s erstwhile geopolitical priorities — even at the expense of his own country’s core interests. After all, one of the main reasons for Germany’s contracting economy and ongoing deindustrialisation is its decision to decouple from Russian gas under strong US pressure.
Now, of course, Washington has a very different Ukraine policy. So will Merz be forced to abandon his Atlanticist beliefs? Not necessarily. Though his strong anti-Russian stance and militaristic tendencies seem at odds with Trump’s efforts to de-escalate the conflict, the reality is that their visions are more aligned than might initially seem to be the case. What, in the end, does Trump demand from Europe? Higher defence spending and a significant role in shouldering both the financial and strategic responsibilities for post-war security in Ukraine, something which could even involve the deployment of a European “peacekeeping” force.
These policies align neatly with Merz’s own vision. He has long advocated boosting Germany’s defence budget, a stance welcomed by his corporate allies in the German military-industrial complex. Now, in fact, he has joined the chorus calling for Europe to “take its security into its own hands”. Trump couldn’t ask for more. This strategic convergence, coupled with Merz’s conservative leanings, deep ties to the US financial and corporate sectors, and ingrained Atlanticism, all make him well-placed to become America’s European “vassal-in-chief” in our post-liberal era. This would place Germany back at the helm of a European Union that is both economically weaker and militarily emboldened — even as it remains strategically adrift.
This arrangement will be accompanied by much rhetoric about German and European “autonomy” — and possibly even heated public disagreements between Berlin and Washington. In reality, though, it would largely be a façade, for the new dynamic would merely serve European and American elites. The former would continue to stoke the fear of Russia as a means to justify more defence spending, directing funds away from social programmes and legitimising their continued crackdown on democracy. As for the latter, they would continue benefiting from Europe’s economic dependence on the US. All the while, people like Merz would be well placed to aid the further cannibalisation of Europe at the hands of US capital.
Not that we should be surprised. Over the past two decades, Merz, just like Trump, has proved himself a businessman first and a politician second. Yet unlike Trump, who at least has some populist credentials, Merz’s victory will be celebrated in the boardrooms of BlackRock and other major corporations, which can expect to see their bank balances start ticking steadily upwards. As so often, though, ordinary voters should not expect this bounty to flow their way.
Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.
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SubscribeIf Merz fails, it won’t be his links to financial interests. He will fail by refusing to work with the AfD and forming alliances with the left wing parties, and maintaining the same policies that have already crippled Germany – net zero, open borders and over regulation of the economy and society.
Depends what concessions he gets from them. Like don’t talk.
Open borders help keep those pesky working class and corporate serf wages down.
Quote from last night , after Merz´ election win: ” “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA. I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump’s statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
If he is anti-Russian, he is ok by me.
The irony is that Merz could could offer a great partnership with AfD in terms of legitimacy and balancing their populist instincts with Merz pro business platform, not dissimilar to Trumps broad church of the right approach.
Instead, he’s about to get back into bed with a bunch of wets and eco lunatics, what a clown.
But that’s the Davos formula, isn’t it: big business, big government, open borders.
But is he pro-business or pro-parasitical finance? Which is essentially anti-business.
The big question is whether Merz will try to stop the loss of German manufacturing companies to the US and elsewhere.
Sorry Fazi don’t know much about german politics.
Merz earlier connections with Blackrock hasn’t been mentioned once in the campaign, in Germany.
Why do you think they would keep his connections to Blackrock out of the spotlight?
Could it be because he is the corporate media and elite’s choice? I’ve no idea about German politics either but I am sure if he wasn’t one of theirs – so to speak – that possible conflict of interests would be brought out into the open.
The biggest problem with Western governance and its economic system is that it has been fully privatized—private entities effectively run the government. This process is called financialization—a system where economic power isn’t rooted in tangible assets like land, industry, or natural resources but in financial instruments, banking assets, and speculative markets. Wealth circulates within the same elite hands, while corporations disguise their takeover of the state and the military under buzzwords like privatization and deregulation. This is the current structure of the West.
So when people hear the term nationalism, they panic. But if you strip away the propaganda, nationalism is simply the idea that people share a collective identity based on land, culture, and language—things that are real, material, and concrete, rather than financial or abstract. Nationalism prioritizes the interests of the nation and its people over global financial markets. This is the direct antithesis of financialization, which erases national identity in favor of profit-driven policies that enrich a small elite at the expense of everyone else.
Oligarchs and corporate profiteers want the state weakened so that finance becomes the dominant force. Under this model, profit is the only priority—land, language, and national identity become irrelevant. This is also why they promote mass immigration—not for humanitarian reasons, but because it destabilizes the working class, keeping people stressed, distracted, and too preoccupied with survival to question the power structures manipulating them. In a financialized system, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, or what your country once stood for—the only thing that matters is keeping the wealth funneling upward.
This is exactly why the West is losing ground to countries like Russia and China, which have resisted financialization by protecting their markets and prioritizing their own “national” interests. Unlike the West, these nations are built around a shared cultural and territorial foundation, making them resilient to external financial control. And yet, Western elites demonize them, weaponizing the term nationalist to smear them as authoritarian threats (ironically they are a small group wanting to rule without consent)—turning national sovereignty itself into a dirty word, as if preserving one’s nation is inherently evil.
The truth is, Europeans don’t oppose nationalism because they reject it for themselves—they used to oppose it because they spent centuries destroying it in other countries. They colonized America, exterminated Indigenous peoples, and dismantled national identities in favor of land grabs and resource extraction (see the irony of destroying nationalism to gain what land). They did the same in Africa. Now, as global power shifts, they fear the same fate befalling them. So the oligarchs wage psychological warfare, conditioning people to believe that nationalism is dangerous—acceptable only when imposed on others, but unacceptable when embraced internally.
And that brings us to a key question: who are the real financiers of this system? Is it not deeply insulting that BlackRock—an American financial firm—is being casually considered to buy out Germany? Just take a second to process that. Why is that even an option?
But financialization is reaching its breaking point. Technology is changing the landscape, and it’s becoming clear that nationalism—rooted in land, people, and language—is a far more stable and concrete foundation for governance. Meanwhile, financialization remains an empty shell—an elite game of shuffling wealth without producing anything of real value.
So unless the system is rigged or voting mechanisms are manipulated in his favor, Merz will not win—because he represents exactly what the western population is now fighting to remove: financialization over their national identity.
He should be defeated soundedly and loudly!
they spent centuries destroying it in other countries
There was no ‘nationalism’ in those countries. Their societies were almost uniformly tribal. In America, tribes fought each other over the land for centuries before Europeans arrived in any great numbers. The white tribe triumphed because it was generally more competent than the others. The ‘noble savage living in harmony with nature’ narrative is nonsense.
However, I do agree wholeheartedly with your points about financialisation.
Columbus was an Italian tribesman working for the Spanish tribal monarchy. A tribe is the prototype of nationalism—words change over time, but the meaning and depth of words remain the same. There were tribes there, but they were not European, just as there are Germans but not French tribes here! The context matter.
Become conscious of how you do not associate tribes with Europe but with others. This type of selective thinking or unconscious bias is what makes us foolish in dealing with the world stage who have observed us. Our hypocrisy is unmatched but also absolutely stupid at this point.
I did refer to the ‘white tribe’ of Europeans. Nations have borders, tribes don’t. History is not a struggle between good people with white hats and bad people with black hats. That’s Disneyfication.
Some parts of the type of nationalism you are referring to were actually championed by the father of capitalism Adam Smith. In fact, with the ‘invisible hand’ he means that businesses will prefer the domestic market “as if by an invisible hand”. It is widely misunderstood as an argument for a laisser-faire free market: Smith actually argues against globalism. However, I think you are not entirely correct about the nationalism in Russia and China. Russia actually had a huge identity crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union and because of those ‘neoliberal’ policies you mentioned were forced upon them in a very short period, i.e. “shock therapie”. This quite literally produced an oligarchy immediately. Putin was a response to all of this but the story is still very complex. China might be even more complex. The country is also not really a nation state, there are many groups, identities and provincies that might as well be countries. However, it is said that Xi specifically is obsessed with maintaining and producing a unified China.
a very good piece. Very insightful about right wing politician in Germany. This journalist usually very insightful about what is really happening in Europe.
Maybe Germany can become America’s 52nd state! It would really work out for everyone.
Huh?
Times of crisis have their positive sides. One of them is that the stupidity of political analysts becomes glaringly obvious
No change for Germany, then, as people like Merz get to govern their own demise.
Sorry to lower the tone but… Jeeezuz! What an evil-looking cackling bulbo-head! Top marks to whoever at Unherd selects the photos of these creeps – there have been some beauts lately.
Merz may favour more defense spending, and this might align with Donald Trump’s wishes for Europe, but in fact, the presumptive German Chancellor is now calling for that increased defense expenditure precisely because he no longer believes that Europe can rely on the US defense umbrella any more. His thinking actually sounds more aligned with French president Macron than Donald Trump.
The demand for ‘open borders’ is insatiable amongst putatively Conservative European politicians. EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa), once a designation for a business sales area for US multinationals, is becoming a reality.