The political impact on Merz and his conservatives is significant. According to Germany’s ARD-DeutschlandTrend survey, two-thirds of Germans are against the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) proposal to limit part-time work.
More critically for Merz, his conservatives are losing ground on their primary issue: the economy. Only 31 percent of Germans now trust the chancellor’s conservatives to enhance the economy, still higher than other parties, but 6 percentage points lower than last year, equalling the conservatives’ worst economic rating recorded.
Predictably, earlier this month, Merz’s party removed the term “part-time lifestyle” from the proposal on increasing work hours, which is to be discussed at a CDU conference in late February.
Greece is at the top for the most hours worked in the EU—a country that many German conservatives labeled as lazy during the European debt crisis. Merz now views Greece as a model, although Germany’s labor productivity remains much higher.
During a visit from Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to Berlin last year, Merz lauded Athens for deregulating its labor market to enable a six-day workweek. “I recommend anyone in Germany who thinks working 40 hours a week is unreasonable to look at Greece,” Merz stated alongside Mitsotakis. “We can certainly learn from Greece in this regard.”
However, with strong German opposition to such proposals and Merz’s coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which defends current labor-market regulations, the chancellor has limited solutions for Germany’s ongoing skilled labor shortage and stagnating productivity.
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