BERLIN: Germany\u2019s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed Tuesday to be a \u201cvery European\u201d leader, with the continent\u2019s other countries hopeful Germany will take on a greater international role.
\n\u201cI am influenced by my work in the European Parliament, that has shaped me a lot to this day,\u201d Merz said after being elected chancellor by the Bundestag earlier in the day.
\nOn his first full day in office, Merz will head Wednesday to France and then Poland seeking to boost ties with European neighbors in turbulent times.
\nEurope has sought to present a united front as US President Donald Trump upends long-standing security and diplomatic ties, and in the face of a hostile Russia.
\nBut Germany has for the most part been on the sidelines since the collapse in November of former chancellor Olaf Scholz\u2019s government, with politics all but paralyzed as the country awaited a new leader.
\nAsked how Germany could seek to influence talks on a possible peace deal in the Ukraine war, Merz said there was a \u201cproven format\u201d of Berlin working together with France and Britain.
\n\u201cGermany has been quite reticent in recent months due to the transition from one government to another,\u201d Merz told public broadcaster ZDF, before adding that he planned to \u201cconsult intensively\u201d with London and Paris from now.
\n\u201cIf we can include the Poles, then it will be even better,\u201d he added.
\nEuropean countries have been worried about being sidelined in talks on the conflict, after Trump\u2019s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
\nMerz has vowed a crackdown on immigration but he insisted that European neighbors\u2019 views would be \u201ctaken into consideration.\u201d
\n\u201cI will be discussing these issues with both the French president and the Polish prime minister \u2014 we want to prepare a European policy together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN: Germany\u2019s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed Tuesday to be a \u201cvery European\u201d leader, with the continent\u2019s other countries hopeful Germany will take on a greater international role. \u201cI am influenced by my work in the European Parliament, that has shaped me a lot to this day,\u201d Merz said after being elected chancellor by the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80719,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80707\/revisions\/80719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}