As part of an annual tradition, Chancellor Friedrich Merz sat down with public broadcaster ARD on Sunday evening for a wide-ranging summer interview. Amid drooping poll numbers, Merz tried to use the interview to tout his government’s work on economic, migration and energy policy.
At the same time, Merz made a number of misleading claims, often overstating his administration’s work and misrepresenting climate science.
DW Fact check, in collaboration with colleagues across the ARD fact-checking network, reviewed Merz’s interview live.
Did Merz cut asylum numbers by 60%?
Claim: “One of the main issues in the last federal election campaign was the migration crisis, and together with the federal government, we’ve been able to reduce the numbers by over 60% in just over a year.”
Verdict: Misleading
This is misleading for several reasons — it is both questionable what exactly Merz meant by migration, and also not clear to which period he is referring.
The number of asylum-seekers in Germany has fallen significantly, but not to the extent Merz said. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), a total of 56,547 asylum applications were filed in the first half of 2026, including 39,646 first-time applications. Compared with the same period last year, the number of first-time applications fell by 35.4% — significantly less than the figure cited by Merz. Comparing the number of initial asylum applications for the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026 with the same period of the previous year, the number of initial asylum applications fell from 169,671 to 91,546 – a decrease of 46 percent.
Comparing individual months reveals significant fluctuations: In July 2026, the number of initial asylum applications, at 4,311, was even around 48 percent lower than in the same month of the previous year. A decline of almost 60 percent was recorded only once, inAugust 2025 compared to August 2024, when looking at individual months since Merz took office .
In addition, the downward trend began even before the Merz government took office in May 2025. After the fall of Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024, the number of asylum-seekers in Germany declined. At the European level, the number of asylum applications also fell in the first half of 2025.
Official statistics also show a decline in general migration. According to the Federal Statistical Office, around 235,000 more people immigrated to Germany in 2025 than emigrated. This means that net immigration was 45% below the previous year’s figure of 430,000 people. But that’s mostly due to the number of arrivals falling, while the number of departures remained almost stable.
Germany’s debt, in context
Claim: “We are still one of the least indebted countries in Europe. We are still a country that has by far the best credit rating of any European nation. No one doubts the debt sustainability of our country or our economy; we are operating within reasonable limits here.”
Verdict: Misleading
There are three important ways to measure how much debt EU countries hold: debt-to-GDP ratio, deficit spending and credit rating.
On the first — debt-to-GDP ratio, or how a country’s total debt compares to its annual economic output — Germany receives a failing grade. The eurozone requires countries to keep this ratio below 60%. Germany and 11 other countries are above that limit, versus 15 countries which are in compliance, putting Germany smack in the middle of the eurozone.
On the second — government deficits, or a country’s net borrowing — Germany is just scraping by. The eurozone asks its members to keep this figure below 3%. Germany’s net borrowing is at 2.7%, joining 16 other countries that are also below the limit. Of the 17 countries that meet that requirement, Germany comes the second closest to hitting the 3% limit.
As for credit rating — a grade from investors on how likely a country is to repay its debts — Germany does indeed earn the highest marks possible. But it shares that grade with several other countries. There are only 11 countries in the world with an AAA rating from S&P: Germany joins Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland in earning the grade.
In 2009, Germany amended its constitution by adding a so-called “debt brake,” mandating the government to keep deficits to 0.35% of GDP. In 2020, that restriction was suspended to deal with the COVID pandemic and then again in 2022 and 2025 to allow for an increase in defense spending.
Real CO2 balance of electric cars
Claim: “At the European level, the issue with internal combustion engines has nothing to do with CO2 emissions. We want climate-friendly and climate-neutral cars, but we don’t want to dictate the technology — it’s not up to politicians to decide that. What matters is how much CO2 such a car emits, and the CO2 balance of electric mobility isn’t as rosy as it’s often portrayed.”
Verdict: Misleading
Battery electric vehicles produce, on average, 73% less CO2 emissions than internal combustion engine vehicles, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a US-based nonprofit think tank.
Battery electric vehicles do generate about 40% higher production emissions, mostly because of the processes involved in manufacturing the battery, though these are usually offset after about one or two years of driving.
Merz was likely referring to a new paper from researchers at the Technical University of Munich, which right-wing media seized on this week. The paper, which took an average of 19 studies, claimed that battery electric vehicles only reduce CO2 emissions by 41%, compared to traditional cars.
But there’s a key issue with the TUM paper: including all those studies means older analyses with outdated electricity mixes are given equal weight. The ICCT analysis, on the other hand, uses a more current estimate.
Either way, there’s an overwhelming scientific consensus that electric vehicles are better for the environment than traditional cars.
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Edited by: Martin Kuebler
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