(22 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Munich, Germany – 22 February 2025
1. Various of supporters cheering and applauding as German opposition leader and election front-runner Friedrich Merz arrives at pre-election party
2. SOUNDBITE (German) Friedrich Merz, Christian Democratic Union candidate for Chancellor:
“There will be so many journalists from all over the world in Berlin like never before. This federal election will attract a lot of attention like never before. Because the world might ask more intensely outside of Europe and especially within Europe: What will Germany do? Which course will this Federal Republic of Germany take now and within the next years? Now it is again all about fundamental decisions for our country and that is why we are ready to take over responsibility for our country.”
3. Various of supporters cheering and clapping
4. Various of Merz on stage
5. Man waving flag
6. Mid of Merz and Markus Soeder, Prime Minister of Bavaria
7. SOUNDBITE (German) Lothar Darossi, Munich resident:
“The first expectation is that we get a very high voter turnout. The second is that we get a clear government relationship with a change of politics. That is why I am here today.”
8. SOUNDBITE (German) Nina Diepold, Munich resident:
“I am expecting a change of government. That the world takes us seriously again. And that we have clear security and clear justice and therefore we don’t have to move to the right.”
9. Man drinking beer
10. Bavarian food
11. Bavarian musicians
12. Greenpeace protesters outside the beer hall venue
13. Protester dancing with Merz mask on
14. Pan of protesters dancing
15. Police
STORYLINE:
Friedrich Merz, the German opposition leader and front-runner in Sunday’s election, joined supporters at a beer hall in Munich on Saturday for a pre-vote party.
"This federal election will attract a lot of attention like never before. Because the world might ask more intensely outside of Europe and especially within Europe: What will Germany do?" Merz told cheering supporters at the Loewenbraeukeller.
Meanwhile, climate activists from Greenpeace staged a flashmob protest outside the venue calling for "socially just climate protection."
Germans are electing a new parliament Sunday after a campaign focused on the state of Europe’s biggest economy and calls to curb migration, while uncertainty has grown rapidly about the future of Ukraine and the strength of Europe’s alliance with the United States.
It appears to have done little to shift parties’ position in polls.
They have consistently shown the center-right opposition, main challenger Merz’s Union bloc, in the lead.
It’s ahead of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, which is on course for the strongest result for a far-right party since World War II, but has no other party willing to go into government with it.
AP video by Michael Faulhaber
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