"UNACCEPTABLE!" Merz attacks Bas, but isn't allowed to fire her | NIUS Live from December 3, 2025
Labor Minister and SPD leader Bärbel Bas was ridiculed at the Employers' Day conference when she defended the tax-based financing of pensions. Bas responded at the Young Socialists' (Jusos) federal congress in Mannheim: Employers are the "enemy that must be fought." Merz calls this statement "unacceptable." But fire them? He can't—otherwise the coalition will collapse, and with it, his own chancellorship. The SPD is demanding an apology from the employers instead. Matthias Miersch speaks of a "return to objectivity," while nerves are frayed in the CDU/CSU.
And as if that weren't enough, Merz's majority in the controversial pension dispute is increasingly shaky. In a test vote within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, exactly 21 members—primarily from the Young Group and beyond—are said to have voted against the proposal, with four abstentions. 21 votes that could be missing in the Bundestag next Friday. 21 votes that could cost Merz his majority and perhaps even his chancellorship. Merz and parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn had been putting on considerable pressure beforehand: "I'm watching very closely who applauds and who doesn't," the Chancellor is said to have remarked. Spahn even dodged Caren Miosga's question about whether she had been threatened with party list positions and political careers. Now the infamous "confessional procedure" is underway: Anyone who truly intends to vote "no" on Friday must report to the parliamentary group's executive committee.
Two crises at once: An entire faction within his own parliamentary group is rebelling, and within the coalition, the SPD is thumbing its nose at the Chancellor. Is this the beginning of the end for Friedrich Merz? Will the coalition even survive Friday? Or are we witnessing the government's collapse in real time?
On NIUS Live, journalist Wolfgang Herles and NIUS reporter Julius Böhm discussed the topic with moderator Alex Purrucker.
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