Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Merkel’s Succession Is in Play Again

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has campaigned badly, and her party may have lost confidence in her.

May 28, 2019 at 2:03 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Not a winning combination after all.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

After the relatively weak performance of the ruling Christian Democratic Union in the European Parliament election on Sunday, the party’s leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, is in trouble. There is a fear in the party that Chancellor Angela Merkel has messed up her succession, and Bloomberg News has even reported that Merkel herself doubts whether AKK, as she is known, is up to the job.

This has important implications for what happens in Germany between now and the fall of 2021, when the next national election is scheduled to take place. The Merkel succession struggle that played out at the end of last year and ended with AKK’s appointment could restart, and Merkel could end up not serving out her term as chancellor.