BERLIN, July 14, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz admitted Sunday his coalition had to "do better" as it reeled from a row over a nomination to the country's highest court.

On Friday, MPs from Merz's conservative CDU/CSU alliance refused to back a candidate for the constitutional court proposed by their junior coalition partners, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

The nomination of Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf to the 16-member Constitutional Court should have been a formality, but it was pulled at last minute when it became clear she didn't have the necessary support.

Opposition to Brosius-Gersdorf among CDU/CSU lawmakers initially focused on her perceived liberal views on issues including abortion. It was sharpened by allegations she plagiarised parts of a university dissertation.

Merz, whose government has been in office for less than three months, said the party leadership "could have picked up earlier on the fact that there was a lot of discontent" among its own lawmakers.

He promised to "do better" and find a solution to the issue by "discussing it calmly with the SPD".

Speaking to the ZDF TV channel, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an unusually direct intervention that the government had "damaged itself" with the failed nomination.

If the government is unable to successfully nominate someone "we would have to worry, this is no small thing... it affects the functioning and the authority of a constitutional body," Steinmeier said.

- Media backlash -

Parts of the German press were more scathing, branding the government's behaviour a "disaster" and a "fiasco".

The government's slim parliamentary majority means it can ill afford internal divisions and votes such as Friday's are especially challenging as they require a two-thirds majority.

"We have a difficult balance of power in parliament" Merz told the ARD broadcaster, alluding to the far-right Alternative for Germany and the far-left Linke party, who emerged from February's general election with more than a third of seats between them.

Such votes would "remain difficult" over the course of this parliament, Merz said.

The row over Brosius-Gersdorf has increased the impression of discord within the coalition after it failed to defuse a row earlier this month over its tax plans.

Many in the CDU/CSU are particularly unhappy over plans to take out hundreds of billions of euros in new debt to finance upgrades for infrastructure and the military.

Merz said that the government was "not a love marriage, it is a coalition of work".

"Not everybody is getting their wishes, the SPD knows this, CDU/CSU voters know this. We are making good, sensible compromises," he said.

Nevertheless the rows raise the spectre of the previous coalition government under the SPD's Olaf Scholz, which was dramatically brought down by infighting, prompting February's early election.