Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 23, 2026
1 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026

Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on January 23, 2026
1 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026

Friedrich Merz rejects Trump's Peace Plan due to governance issues but is open to exploring new cooperation formats for global peace.
ROME, Jan 23 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday he would be ready to join U.S. President Donald Trump's Board of Peace initiative for the sake of Gaza but could not accept the plan in its current form.
"In the form in which the peace board is currently set up, we cannot accept its governance structures in Germany for constitutional reasons," Merz said in a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome.
"However, we are of course prepared to explore other forms -- new forms -- of cooperation with the United States of America if the aim is to find new formats that bring us closer to peace in different regions of the world."
Merz said these formats would not need to be limited only to Gaza and the Middle East but could also apply, for example, to Ukraine.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke in Rome, additional reporting by Friederike Heine and Linda Pasquini, writing by Sarah Marsh, editing by Thomas Seythal)
The main topic is Friedrich Merz's rejection of Trump's Peace Plan due to governance issues, while expressing openness to new cooperation formats.
Merz rejected the plan because its governance structures are incompatible with Germany's constitutional requirements.
Merz proposes exploring new cooperation formats with the US to achieve peace in various global regions.
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