The political damage to Merz and his conservatives appears substantial. Two-thirds of Germans oppose the proposal of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to make it harder to work part-time, according to Germany’s benchmark ARD-DeutschlandTrend survey.
More consequentially for Merz, his conservatives are losing points on their core issue: the economy. Only 31 percent of Germans surveyed said they trust the chancellor’s conservatives to improve the economy. That still beats other parties, but is 6 percentage points less than last year — tying the conservatives’ lowest economy rating on record.
So it came as no surprise, earlier this month, when Merz’s party struck the phrase “part-time lifestyle” from the proposal on increasing work hours to be considered at a CDU party conference in late February.
Greece as a model?
Topping the list of the most hours worked in the EU is Greece, a country whose people many German conservatives scorned as lazy during the European debt crisis over a decade ago. Merz now holds up Greece as something of a model, although Germany’s labor productivity remains far higher.
During a visit by conservative Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Berlin last year, Merz praised Athens for deregulating its labor market, enabling a six-day workweek. “I recommend that everyone in Germany who thinks it is terrible and unreasonable to work 40 hours a week … take a look at Greece,” Merz said alongside Mitsotakis. “We can certainly learn something from Greece in this regard.”
But given fierce German resistance to such proposals — and the fact Merz governs in coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is protective of current labor-market regulations — the chancellor has few immediate remedies for Germany’s chronic skilled labor shortage and stagnating productivity.