As the FDP expresses discontent, Union’s Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz is seen to be discouraging a vote for the FDP, despite the party’s lower poll ratings.
“Friedrich Merz unnecessarily divides the conservative camp apart – it seems driven by his own nervousness on the final stretch” Meyer told the Spiegel. It would “decisively strengthen the conservative camp if the FDP is represented in the German Bundestag.” This, he said, is “more important than a percentage point for the Union.”
According to current polls, the party is expected to garner around four percent at the next federal election, with the Union standing at around 30 percent. A black-yellow coalition comprising the Union and FDP would thus be impossible.
“Four percent are four percent too many for the FDP and four percent too few for the Union” Merz said to the Funke-Mediengroup’s newspapers and the French newspaper Ouest-France.