Beer-coaster economics Merz was born in 1955 into a conservative, Catholic family in the North Rhine-Westphalia town of Brilon, in central Germany, and joined the CDU’s youth wing while still in ...

Already, Merz has pledged to increase defense spending and put Paris, Warsaw, and London at the lead of a new policy to shore ...

BERLIN (AP) — The contenders in Germany's election made their final appeals to voters Saturday, with opposition leader and front-runner Friedrich Merz vowing to revive the stagnant economy and defend ...

Merz was best known for arguing in 2003 that German tax rules should be simple enough that a family could calculate what they owe on a beer coaster. One of his demo coasters is in the collection ...

A storied beer mat once used by German conservative leader Friedrich Merz to outline his proposals for a streamlined tax system is "unharmed," a German museum director said on Monday, after the ...

In 2003, he famously argued that German tax rules should be simple enough to calculate on the back of a beer coaster. Merz, who appealed to the CDU’s more traditionalist, right-wing faction ...

That led to the election being held seven months ahead of schedule. At a closing rally in a Munich beer hall, Merz told supporters that “three years in opposition are enough." Germany is a ...

he famously argued that German tax rules should be simple enough to calculate on the back of a beer coaster. A growing feud with Merkel eventually pushed him to leave politics, however. Merz, who ...