Two months after the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz took office, a new poll showed widespread dissatisfaction with his government, Brussels Signal reports.
In the poll, conducted by YouGov among 2,192 citizens on July 11-14, 65% of respondents said they were “very dissatisfied” or “rather dissatisfied” with the work of Merz’s administration. This is 10 percentage points more than in the last poll conducted in June.
Only 29% of respondents are somewhat or very satisfied with Merz’s coalition government, which includes the conservative chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
According to YouGov, this means that the new government is even less popular than its predecessor, a three-party coalition led by the SPD and the Green Party, was at the same point in its term.
Merz was not much more popular than his own government: 59% of respondents believe he is doing a poor job, and only 32% are satisfied with his work. The rest answered “don’t know.”
The discontent was reflected in the poll results for the CDU and SPD, which were lower than the results of the February 2025 elections.
The CDU would have received 27% of the vote (compared to 29% in the elections), and the SPD 14% (compared to 16%) — a historic low.
Meanwhile, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which traditionally attracts many disaffected conservatives, rose by 4 percentage points to 25% in the polls. The Green and Left parties can expect 10-11% of the vote.
Although the YouGov poll did not ask about the reasons for dissatisfaction, Merz and his CDU recently angered their voters by yielding to their left-wing coalition partner on a number of issues.
In June, the chancellor broke his election promise to abolish the electricity tax for German households due to “budget constraints.” This happened despite the fact that the federal budget recently presented by SPD Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil provides for a record amount of new debt.
On July 11, the CDU and SPD were forced to suddenly cancel a parliamentary vote on the appointment of three new judges to the Constitutional Court. This came after conservative MPs opposed the party leadership’s agreement on the SPD’s candidate, who many on the right consider too left-wing.
Finally, Merz’s plans to reform Germany’s extremely expensive social security system, known as Bürgergeld (citizen’s allowance), may turn out to be another unfulfilled promise due to resistance from the SPD.
