"100 Days of Merz: Promises Delivered to Favorites Over Nationwide Wealth and Progress"

In the first 100 days of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government, promises of a new era for Germany have been met with broken promises and coalition chaos.

The most notable disappointment has been the allocation of funds for infrastructure projects. Initially, Merz and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil pledged to allocate €300 billion from a special fund to additional infrastructure projects. However, the draft budget now only allocates an additional €5 billion for road and railway infrastructure.

Another broken promise concerns the universal electricity tax cut, which was intended to provide relief for households and businesses during high energy prices. Unfortunately, this initiative has been shelved.

The current Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Katherina Reiche, has been in office since May 6, 2025. Her tenure has been marked by controversy, particularly in the realm of climate protection. Reiche's commitment to fossil fuel infrastructure is leading the country towards a gas-based planned economy, and her decisions are causing concern among environmentalists.

The energy transition, initiated under Robert Habeck, has been abandoned by the current federal government. Instead of investing in future technologies, Reiche is cutting subsidies for private solar installations. This decision is likely to push up electricity prices and fail to provide savings to households.

Moreover, the government's approach to climate protection has been criticised as insufficient. Climate protection through forest restructuring, wet peatlands, and ecosystem restoration is to be cut by half in the medium term. The downplaying of the climate crisis is leading to a devastating loss of biodiversity.

The draft budget also features record levels of investment and borrowing, with tricks to conceal the use of off-budget funds for election gifts, such as the "mother's pension" and VAT relief for the food services sector.

The ambitious modernisation of Germany, which was previously unfunded due to opposition from the CDU and FDP Finance Minister Lindner, has been scrapped within the first 100 days of the Merz government.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the state-coordinated construction of 20 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plants has been pursued. This path is climate-damaging, economically dangerous, and expensive.

In conclusion, the first 100 days of Merz's government have been marked by broken promises and coalition chaos. The country is squandering a unique opportunity to give the country an economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable future.