Friedrich Merz is to become Germany’s next chancellor with the CDU taking 28.6% of the vote. The outgoing SPD crashed to its worst defeat in more than a century. The AfD doubles its votes to come in second and maintains it could still work in a coalition despite the German ‘firewall’ strategy. The hopes of German political stability boosts the euro. And on the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Volodomyr Zelenskyy says he would be willing to step down if the country received NATO membership.

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