Probable next German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unexpectedly visited Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, UNN reports, citing DW and Merz's Instagram page.
Details
The visit came just a few days after his conservative CDU/CSU bloc became the largest party in terms of seats after the German elections.
The trip was expected to discuss recent changes in U.S. policy on the war in Ukraine, as well as European security issues.
Merz posted a photo of himself and Macron on social media late Wednesday night, thanking the French president for his "friendship" and "trust in German-French relations.
"Together, our countries can achieve great things for Europe," Merz wrote on Instagram.
Meanwhile, Merz is not expected to accompany Scholz to the EU summit to be held in Brussels next month.
Scholz's spokesman Steffen Gebestreit said on Wednesday that the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate does not need any "governmental training" or "internship" before taking office.
A government spokesman said Scholz will not take Merz to the March 6 meeting, where EU leaders are expected to discuss Washington's recent change of heart on Ukraine.
There has been speculation that Merz will join Scholz at the summit, just as Scholz accompanied Angela Merkel to the G20 meeting in Rome in late 2021, shortly after winning the German election.
However, Gebestreit rejected this comparison, saying that Scholz was fulfilling his former duties as Merkel's finance minister.
Addendum
Merz's trip to Paris was his first outside of Germany after his center-right alliance of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Bavaria won the election on Sunday with 28.5% of the vote, giving him 208 seats in the German Bundestag.
With 630 seats in the Bundestag, the conservative group fell short of the number needed to form a government. The next largest party is the AfD, which won 152 seats after voting on Sunday, but as Merz's CDU/CSU bloc rules out cooperation with the far-right party, the conservatives are likely to consider forming a coalition with the Social Democrats of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the newspaper writes.
The center-left SPD, Germany's oldest party, recorded its worst federal election result in more than a century and the largest loss of votes compared to previous elections. Scholz announced that he would not work in the new government.