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Merz warns Europe should seek ‘independence’ from US after conservatives win German election

AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla cheer with party members on election night in Berlin on Sunday. Soeren Stache/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla cheer with party members on election night in Berlin on Sunday. Soeren Stache/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Berlin (CNN) — Europe must seek to “achieve independence” from the United States, Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz said after exit polls showed his opposition conservatives were on track to win Sunday’s election, in a vote that also saw surging support for the far-right.

Merz, an old-school conservative who has never held a government role previously, is set to lead Europe’s biggest economy and most populous state, after his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party won 28.6% of the vote, according to preliminary official results.

“Let’s get the party started,” Merz, 69, told supporters as he declared victory at the CDU’s party headquarters in central Berlin, an apparent nod to wanting to get coalition negotiations underway quickly as the region grapples with US President Donald Trump’s upending of Europe and US relations.

In a televised roundtable later Sunday evening, Merz also criticized US “intervention” in the German election campaign in recent days. “The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow,” he said. “We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my top priority is to create unity in Europe.”

 

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Author: Sophie Tanno and Helen Regan, CNN

Source: CNN:::

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