By Andrew Hammond

The origin of the phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” is often attributed to the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. However, it has assumed a much more modern relevance in 2025 for Germany.

Relatively few observers expected the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, leader of the right-of-center Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union bloc, to meet his pledge in February that he would finalize a coalition agreement with the left-of-center Social Democrats before Easter.

However, in the midst of much policy turbulence, he announced his new government on Wednesday, more than a week ahead of his deadline, and with a huge in-tray awaiting his attention.

In 2017, it took Angela Merkel more than 170 days to finally agree the previous “grand coalition” between the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats, so the latest negotiations delivered a deal much more quickly.

The fact that Merz managed to form his coalition on time reflects not only his personal desire to assume power as quickly as possible; the need for expedient compromise was necessitated by a challenging external context, from the ongoing developments in Ukraine to the uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

On the issue of Ukraine, Merz might be more helpful to Kyiv than his predecessor as chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who was hesitant to supply advanced weaponry that could be used to attack Russian territory. In contrast, Merz conditionally supports equipping Ukraine with longer-range Taurus missiles. This........

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