Merz Blamed His Failure to Fulfill Campaign Promises on the Lack of Russian Gas

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz linked the country’s continuing energy crisis to the end of Russian gas supplies. In an interview with ZDF, he also said Berlin’s relationship with Washington had grown more difficult because the United States under Donald Trump was providing less support to NATO.

Merz made the remarks in response to a question about whether it had been a mistake to make numerous promises to voters during the election campaign.

“I was working from entirely different assumptions. We have now had a war in Ukraine for five consecutive years. We are facing a difficult situation in our relations with the United States. We can see that under Donald Trump, the United States no longer supports NATO to the same extent that it did over previous decades. We face a completely different challenge from China. And the energy crisis caused by the absence of Russian gas continues,” the chancellor said.