Around three appointments per week: the press spokespersons for Chancellor Merz and the federal ministers have answered questions from accredited journalists at the government press conference more than 150 times since the government took office. The conference usually takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The space and agenda are organized by the Federal Press Conference, an association of around 900 capital city journalists. The federal government is just a guest. This is unique worldwide and is intended to express the power of the press as a controlling body of the government.
We analyzed the transcripts of the government press conferences from the first 400 days of the Merz federal government. Some themes stand out in particular.
For our “Subsequent delivery” project We have collected, indexed and made searchable all the transcripts of government press conferences from the past twelve years. The dataset includes more than 1,700 logs containing over eleven million words.
How you can use the data set:
- Ask yourself: If government representatives don’t answer the questions, you can follow up yourself with just a few clicks: Our tool allows you to request the missing information directly using the Freedom of Information Act.
- Follow your topic: Would you like to be informed directly as soon as a specific topic is discussed at the government press conference? We make it possible! Set up your personal newsletter so that you receive the latest press conferences directly to your inbox when your topics are discussed.
- Find out what is in focus and when: When was the idea of cutting funding for democracy projects first discussed? Is it true that no one talks about the climate anymore? And does the federal government actually talk about “refugees” or “refugees” – and when did that change? With our tracker you can track when, how and how often a topic has been discussed in recent years and how the discourse has changed. You can also compare different terms over time.
Top topic: Ukraine & Russia
Ukraine was the topic of the government press conference in 125 meetings; that’s around 90 percent of all appointments. This meant that the topic took up visibly more space again. The Ukraine war was only discussed more often immediately after Russia’s attack in 2022. At the conferences, journalists usually ask questions about current developments, trips by government representatives or statements by the federal government.
The day after the EU Council approved a loan of 90 billion euros for Ukraine, the Chancellor’s spokesman supplied a quote from Friedrich Merz: “With today’s decisions, Ukraine is funded for the next two years. This is good news for Ukraine and pretty bad news for Russia, and both were exactly the intention.”
But not every development in the Ukraine war is reflected in the government press conference. On May 21, 2026, Merz proposed a special status for Ukraine within the EU, as the accession process would take a very long time. The capital’s journalists did not take up the Chancellor’s statement in the subsequent press conferences. Not even a month ago, when Merz had already given hints in this direction at a meeting of EU heads of government made.
Afghanistan: evasion instead of answering
In principle, foreign policy issues seem to occupy a visible space in the government press conference. Since taking office, Afghanistan has been discussed in more than every third meeting. The topic was particularly present in the summer of 2025. At that time it became known that the federal government wanted to expand cooperation with the militant Islamist Taliban in order to implement deportations to Afghanistan.
The Taliban themselves were discussed in 17 meetings, especially when the first deportations to Afghanistan took place. A closer look at the minutes of the government press conference shows how difficult it is for the federal government to put its relationship with the terrorist group into words. At the beginning of July, the government spokesman saidthere is no direct communication with the Taliban. Just a week later, it sounds much less clear from the mouth of the same speaker. If they were to take place, such discussions would take place on a “technical level”.. A month later, a spokesman for the Foreign Office made it clear that that there are such discussions at a “technical level” with the Taliban. At the same time, he explains that the Taliban government in Afghanistan is a “cruel regime”.
In March 2026 it will be particularly visible how the federal government wants to avoid taking a clear position on the Taliban. At that time, ARD reported that in the Afghan embassy in Berlin A Taliban chargé d’affaires was appointed without the knowledge of the Foreign Office. When asked about this, the spokesman for the Foreign Office explained: “I would like to get in under three.” “Under three” is a conversation whose content journalists are not allowed to quote either literally or figuratively. It is the strictest level of confidentiality between press spokespersons and the media. According to the minutes, there is actually a part in which the speaker speaks “under three”. Only then is the question discussed in such a way that the journalists present can also quote from it. We asked what the spokesman said that day “under three”..
Migration: border controls and deportations
The federal government wants to curb migration – including using illegal means. The narrative of limitation also prevailed in the government press conference. The word “migration” is mentioned in more than a third of the appointments (61 cases), the word “border control” was used almost as frequently (59 cases). In 41 dates it’s about deportations.
The conversation was particularly controversial after the Chancellor’s so-called cityscape statement in October 2025. Merz’s statement that despite the decline in the number of asylum seekers there is still a problem in the cityscape is vague, potentially racist and therefore triggered strong criticism. At the government press conference the following day Government spokesman Kornelius initially tried to appease him: “I think you’re reading too much into it,” he replied when asked what exactly the Chancellor meant. In response to five questions from journalists, Kornelius squirms – also because the federal government did not publish this statement in the transcript. In the end he defends the Chancellor. “A lot of accusations are being made online, but I don’t think the Chancellor can be accused of racism in this context.” In the following two weeks, the Chancellor’s statements will continue to be the topic of the government press conference.
Not a big topic: the climate crisis
Although temperatures are rising more and more globally and extreme heat and precipitation are also increasing in Germany, the federal government’s measures against the climate crisis play a comparatively minor role in the government press conference. The word climate is only mentioned in 40 percent of the conferences, and the word “climate crisis” is only used in every fifth meeting. Compared to 2023, these values have halved.
Because the press spokespersons often remained vague in their answers to controversial climate policy statements made by the federal government, we wrote to the Federal Ministry of Economics at one point.
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