Hours after Friedrich Merz's conservatives won Germany's national election, he sent the outgoing Social Democrat government a memorandum dictating how to cooperate during the transition period before he took power.

Negotiators from German election winner Friedrich Merz’s conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democrats have started exploratory talks on a possible coalition government.

Such talks often drag on for weeks if not months in Germany, but Merz is in a hurry to reach a deal with Europe's biggest economy facing economic malaise and an upheaval in relations with the U.S.

Germany’s Friedrich Merz, poised to be his country’s next chancellor, said he thinks the explosive exchange between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump on Friday resulted from a “deliberate escalation” by the U.

The American side deliberately orchestrated the confrontation during President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the White House, Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the likely chancellor,