BERLIN, April 30, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Germany's chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz cleared the final hurdle Wednesday to launching a new government next week when the centre-left SPD signed off on a coalition deal with his conservative CDU/CSU.

Merz, 69, who boasts a strong business background but has no governing experience, is set to assume office next Tuesday, ending half a year of political paralysis in Berlin at a time of major geopolitical upheaval.

The long-time rival of his party's former chancellor Angela Merkel will take the helm of Europe's top economy at a time when US President Donald Trump has rattled transatlantic ties and Europe is in a tense standoff with Russia.

Merz's CDU/CSU camp, which won February's parliamentary election, has invited the SPD of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz to form a coalition for the next four years, while ruling out any collaboration with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second.

The SPD membership approved the deal with Merz's party with an 84.6 percent majority in a vote which ended late Tuesday.

The SPD's co-chair Lars Klingbeil is set to serve as finance minister and vice chancellor after the party leadership unanimously approved his nomination.

Merz has appointed the CDU's Johann Wadephul as his new foreign minister while Defence Minister Boris Pistorius of the SPD is expected to stay on in his job.

Germany held a general election on February 23 after the collapse of a three-way coalition led by Scholz on November 6, the day Trump was re-elected to the White House.

- Economy and defence -

Merz's bloc won 28.5 percent of the vote and has pledged to build up Germany's long underfunded armed forces and keep strongly supporting Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion.

He has also vowed to rebuild German infrastructure and to revive the economy, which has shrunk for two years in a row but booked slight growth of 0.2 percent in the first quarter.

Merz has secured major financial firepower for his ambitious plans after the outgoing parliament approved hundreds of billions of euros in extra spending and a softening of Germany's strict debt rules.

Speaking on Monday at a CDU party meeting that also approved the coalition contract, Merz said Germany was ready to "once again assume leadership responsibility" in the European Union.

He has also committed to a crackdown on irregular immigration, which has helped fuel the rise of the AfD and secured them a record 20 percent in the elections.

It has since run neck-and neck with the conservatives or even topped some national surveys.

The future head of the chancellery, Thorsten Frei, vowed the crackdown on irregular immigration would start immediately.

"Anyone who attempts to enter Germany illegally must expect that from May 6 onward to be denied entry at the German border," he told the Funke newspaper group.

SPD general secretary Matthias Miersch expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the members' vote, judging that it signals "significant support for joining the national government".

Mass-circulation daily Bild was less charitable, pointing out that only 54 percent of SPD party members took part -- a level of disinterest it labelled a "slap in the face" for party leaders.