HAMBURG, Germany — Friedrich Merz is set to lead Europe’s largest economy after his conservative CDU-CSU group won Germany’s parliamentary election on Sunday, taking the reins at a time of strained relations with its biggest trade partner, the U.S., and weak EU-China ties.
Under German rules, the winner of the election must form a government that has at least 50% of the votes. This threshold has never been met by any one party and the winner — the Christian Democratic Union and its sister party Christian Social Union with just under 30% of the votes, based on exit polls — has to form a coalition government.
