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Friedrich Merz, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Alice Weidel
Can Friedrich Merz be the leader Germany – and Europe – needs?
As expected, Friedrich Merz is set to become the next German chancellor after his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) won one of the tightest and highest-turnout elections in the country’s postwar history.
But the 28.5% earned by Merz’s CDU/CSU was the party’s second-lowest tally ever – hardly a mandate. Not to be outdone, outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) came third with just 16.4% – their worst defeat in 137 years. The moderate Greens led by economy minister Robert Habeck lost ground, too, scoring a disappointing 12.5%.
By contrast, extremist parties had a great night on Sunday. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second place, doubling its vote share since the 2021 elections to 20.8% on the back of large gains with previous nonvoters, in the poorest districts, and across eastern Germany. The former communist Left Party (Die Linke), meanwhile, secured 8.8% of the vote by mobilizing younger women.
Neither the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) nor the far-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) were able to clear the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament, increasing the number of seats allocated to the larger parties. The CDU/CSU and SPD’s combined allocation of 328 of 630 seats in the Bundestag will allow Merz to form a two-way coalition with the Social Democrats, avoiding the worst-case scenario of a weak, unwieldy, and unstable three-party coalition like Scholz’s ill-fated government with the Greens and the FDP (before it collapsed).
Though the CDU/CSU and SPD have real differences on immigration, social spending, and taxation, and their presumptive 13-seat majority won’t be large, so-called “grand coalitions” between these rival establishment parties have a long history in Germany and are popular with voters for their track record of delivering moderation and stability. Merz’s predecessor as party leader, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, presided over three of them.
But the inevitable alliance this time around is a flashing warning sign of Germans’ fading patience with the political center – and, conversely, of their growing appetite for radical movements – in a fragmented party landscape. The AfD won enough seats to make a two-way coalition with the CDU/CSU mathematically possible, but it is considered a neo-Nazi party by the entire German political establishment. Merz has made it clear that, despite his flirtation with them over migration and the recent embrace by Elon Musk and US Vice President JD Vance, the “firewall” keeping the extremists out of power will continue to hold – for now at least.
Yet as mainstream parties continue to lose voters to the far right, they will be increasingly forced into forming ever weaker and more ineffective coalitions just to stay in power. Alice Weidel, the AfD’s leader, has set her sights on the 2029 elections, hoping that the AfD can capitalize on – and nudge – the failure of yet another disappointing centrist government to become Germany’s strongest party and kingmaker. Over the next four years, it will aim to use its much-strengthened position to dominate agenda-setting and sabotage the new government as much as possible.
One weapon the AfD may be able to wield to hamstring Merz’s coalition is the so-called “blocking minority” it’ll form with the hard-left Die Linke, given the radical parties’ combined 216 Bundestag seats – just above the 210 seats needed to thwart constitutional reforms like the loosening of Germany’s strict fiscal rules (aka “debt brake”), which require a two-thirds majority in both houses of parliament.
Created in 2009 to restrict deficits, the constitutionally enshrined debt brake has since limited Berlin’s ability to borrow money to finance public spending. But 2025 is not 2009. Europe’s largest economy is in the midst of a profound economic crisis at a time of unprecedented geopolitical upheaval. Berlin needs to unlock hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize the country’s infrastructure, lower energy costs, invest in innovation, revive its stalled economy, ramp up support for Ukraine, and bolster its defense capabilities. The scale of the challenge has been compounded by President Donald Trump’s recent pivot toward Russia and threat to abandon Europe as the war in Ukraine turns three years old.
Merz struck the right level of urgency when he said that his “absolute priority” as chancellor will be “to strengthen Europe” in order “to achieve independence” from the United States, given that the Trump administration seems to be “largely indifferent” to Europe’s fate. A staunch transatlanticist before Washington started behaving like an adversary, Merz understands that what’s at stake is not just German interests but Europe’s future.
But Germany’s incoming chancellor has his work cut out for him. The AfD will obstruct all attempts to revamp the debt brake and raise borrowing, while the anti-militarist Die Linke supports reforming the borrowing rules but has explicitly vowed to oppose any vote to increase the country’s defense spending on principle. With a blocking minority in the Bundestag, these fringe parties could seriously undermine Merz’s agenda and, by extension, European security.
Merz’s plan to circumvent that challenge is the kind of boldness Germany needs more of. Instead of waiting for the blocking minority to be seated, the soon-to-be chancellor is exploring the possibility of pushing the defense spending hike through the lame-duck parliament, where mainstream parties will technically have a two-thirds supermajority until the newly elected parliament is sworn in on Mar. 25. The fiscally conservative Merz ruled out using this gimmick to reform the debt brake outright yesterday, but he’s reportedly in talks with the Social Democrats and the Greens to set up a special off-budget defense fund worth around 200 billion euros (this would also require a two-thirds majority).
Admittedly, four weeks is very little time to negotiate a workaround while juggling tricky coalition talks in a country that’s notoriously averse to big, fast changes. But extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. If the German political establishment can’t muster the courage to act decisively now, it may not just be the AfD knocking on their doors in four years – Russian troops could be knocking at Europe’s doorstep, too.
Germany's close election limits its ability to lead Europe
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Lots going on the German elections. Probably the most important though, everything around Europe and Russia and Ukraine and the United States kind of dominating the headlines right now. Germany went pretty much the way we all expected. The polls have been very, very steady over the course of the past couple of months. The big question was whether or not you could have a two-party or a three-party coalition that really depended on whether or not parties that were small would get over the 5% hurdle that allows them representation in Germany's parliament, in which case it would be harder to put together a government. You'd need three parties or whether they would stay out. The latter turned out to be the case. Didn't find that out until three A.M. in Germany. Very unusual how close in that regard the election was for those smaller parties, and that means you're going to get a grand coalition, a two-party coalition center-right and center-left.
They don't agree on a lot of policies. It is hard to get good outcomes politically from that kind of a coalition, but it's not unusual in Germany. The other big news, the Alternative für Deutschland performing about as well as they were expected to over the course of the past couple months, they came in a solid second. They won across former East Germany and they got single digits across former West Germany. But that's better than they performed last time around, even though their popularity has been high for a while now, certainly if you think about their trajectory over the some 12 years since they were founded, this is now a party that has a solid shot of being number one in 2029 next German elections, especially if the Germans are unable to turn their economy around. Though on migration, most of the German political spectrum has aligned with where AfD, more or less is just as we've seen across many countries in Europe, like in Italy and in the UK and France and elsewhere.
Okay. So that's the near-term outcome. Still a grand coalition is going to have a hard time spending a huge amount of money on defense or on Ukraine aid or on German growth. And there is some urgency in seeing if you can at least pass more German defense spending outside of their hard fast debt break while the present Scholz-led three-party coalition is in place. Why? Because there is a constitutional majority blocking capacity among the hard left and hard right parties, Die Linke and the AfD in Germany, which means that unless you get one of them on your side, you're not going to be able to do that spending. So the big takeaway here is Germany is probably going to have a really hard time really stepping up as a leader on doing far more in Europe for Europe than even you've seen under Scholz. It's going to be a more powerful government, but not the kind of power that they really need.
So here's a situation where Friedrich Merz, who will be the next German chancellor coming out immediately and saying that they can no longer count on the United States, that even NATO's existence as we look forward to the June NATO summit is open to question that Germany and Europe are going to have to have European defense without the United States, independent of the US claiming that American intervention in Germany's election in favor of the AfD considered by the other German parties to be a neo-Nazi party is as striking and dangerous in intervention and unacceptable as Moscow interventions into Germany's democracy. In other words, the German leadership, the next German chancellor, understanding that the US is an ally, believes that Trump and his administration is an adversary, is an enemy. And that is a truly shocking thing to hear from the incoming German government. Having said all of that, saying it is one thing, taking action to ensure that the Europeans are capable of defending themselves is quite another, and they're nowhere remotely close to that.
Macron in the United States today will be meeting with Trump shortly, meeting with him by himself. Kier Starmer from the UK later this week, same. Are their positions coordinated? More than they have been. But can they do enough? Can they put enough on the table in terms of financing, in terms of boots on the ground in Ukraine absent an American backstop? No, they can't. And I think as a consequence, the baseline expectation is that the US effort at rapprochement with Putin is going ahead. That the US effort of cutting a deal with Putin on Ukraine over the heads of the Ukrainians and the Europeans is largely going ahead. And this of course bodes very badly for the future of Ukraine and Zelensky, but also really does undermine the existence, the strength of NATO as the world's most important collective security agreement. I don't see Trump as wanting to end all military cooperation in Europe.
He just met with the Polish president. It was a very short meeting, supposed to be an hour was 10 minutes. But the important thing for the Poles was announced, which is the US is still committed to maintaining American troops on the ground in Poland. Why? Because Poland is not only very friendly to the US, but it's also moving towards 5% of GDP spend on defense in this year. And it's also said that they're not sending any troops to Ukraine in a post-ceasefire environment. Why not? Well, number one, because they need troops on the ground in Poland. But number two, because the Russians have said that they won't accept any European troops, and right now that's Trump's position. So Poland doesn't want to undermine their important defense protector, the Americans and President Trump. All of this is to say that there's probably going to be more division inside Europe as a consequence of these policies that Trump is putting forward. It's going to be very hard for him to maintain strong unity of Europe, even as they are facing more existential challenges economically in terms of their competitiveness, their growth, and most importantly in terms of their national security. So that's where we are right now. Enormous amount of news coming down the pike this week. Haven't even talked about the latest on Israel and Gaza and China and everything else. But if this is the big news, might as well cover it. Talk to you all real soon.
Christian Democratic Union party leader Friedrich Merz speaks at the party headquarters after the exit poll results are announced for the 2025 general election, in Berlin, Germany, on Feb. 23, 2025.
Conservatives come first, far right second in German election
As expected, the conservative Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Christian Social Union, came out on top in Germany’s election on Sunday with 28.6% of the vote. But the biggest celebrations were held by those supporting the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which scored a second-place finish with 20.8%, doubling its share of the vote since the last election. It beat the centrist SPD’s 16.4% and the Greens’ 11.6%.
The future coalition for the CDU/CSU hung on whether two minor parties, the center-right Free Democrats, aka FDP, and the hard-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht, or BSW, made the 5% threshold necessary to have representation in parliament. Preliminary results show they did not – at 4.3% and 4.97%, respectively, but BSW has said it will look into legal avenues to have the results reexamined because of its near miss. If the results stand, it means the CDU/CSU and the SPD will most likely form a “grand coalition” and not be beholden to a third coalition partner, which would have complicated negotiations and produced a less stable coalition.
What contributed to AfD’s success? The far right’s hard anti-migrant stance was reinforced by four terror attacks in the past two months, including one hours before the start of the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14 and another on Feb. 22, the day before the vote, when a Syrian migrant stabbed a Spanish tourist at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. The party was also endorsed by Elon Musk, who told Germans to “move beyond past [World War II] guilt” during the campaign. In a post Sunday on Truth Social, US President Donald Trump said of the results, “This is a great day for Germany.”
What’s next? CDU leader Freidrich Merz promised to quickly form a coalition government and will become chancellor, adding that “We fought a tough election campaign about important topics … now we will talk to each other.” Merz said aims to strengthen Europe so it can “achieve real independence from the US.”
Germany’s “firewall,” an agreement among the traditional mainstream parties to shut AfD out of government coalitions, is expected to hold for now, but that could change in a future election. With the backing of one in five German voters, Alice Elisabeth Weidel, co-chair of the AfD, declared her party had gone “mainstream.” “Our hand remains outstretched to form a government,” she said after the results. Should the conservatives choose to govern with left-wing parties rather than the AfD, she claimed, “next time we’ll come first.”
Ten thousand protesters gather in front of Duesseldorf Central Station to march against the AfD's upcoming afternoon rally in Duesseldorf, Germany, on Feb. 15, 2025.
Viewpoint: Far right surges to prominence ahead of German elections
Amid a deep economic crisis and renewed migration concerns, the far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is poised to double its vote share in this weekend’s general elections. As a series of random attacks by Middle Eastern or Afghan migrants have increased the appeal of the party’s harsh anti-migration stance, its gains have caught the eye of officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration. In highly unusual interventions, presidential adviser Elon Musk has urged Germans to “move past” the guilt associated with World War II and vote for the extremist AfD, while Vice President JD Vance criticized the refusal of mainstream political leaders to work with the party.
Eurasia Group expert Jan Techau says the AfD has no path to government at present, but its increasing strength is transforming German politics. We sat down with him to learn more.
What are the main issues in these elections?
Two issues stand out. The first is the economy. With terms like “de-industrialization” being bandied around, this is no cyclical adjustment but a profound economic crisis caused by a decline in productivity, high energy prices, and high taxation. Every single party has acknowledged this, even the ones that don’t typically run on economic platforms. The second is migration, which had faded into the background a little, but has been revived in the last couple of months by a series of horrific incidents. In the last one, a rejected Afghan asylum seeker, who, for whatever reason still had a residence permit, drove a car into a crowd.
The war in Ukraine also preoccupies voters, but to a lesser extent at present. The issue is expected to gain prominence during the government formation talks after the elections, especially given US President Donald Trump’s recent outreach to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to start ceasefire talks.
What has been the impact of Vance’s and Musk’s interventions in favor of the AfD?
The AfD’s strong polling is mainly the result of the recent attacks that have stoked concerns over uncontrolled migration, not these interventions by external players. Still, their comments help the AfD by normalizing it and giving it more visibility and air time. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference sent a clear signal to the foreign policy establishment assembled there: The new US government seeks friendship with far-right nationalists in Europe and considers them its real allies. This has not yet translated into better polling for the AfD but has clearly strengthened its confidence.
How do you expect the AfD to perform in the elections?
The party appears on track to win 21% or 22% of the vote, doubling its share from the last elections and finishing second behind the center-right Christian Democrats, or CDU, which is polling at about 30%. The AfD won’t be able to enter government given the aversion of mainstream parties to working with it, but it will lead the opposition, allowing it to partially set the agenda from the political fringes. The AfD’s strategy will be to adopt an obstructionist stance to make the government look bad and improve the party’s position even further ahead of the 2029 elections.
The CDU recently took a risk by accepting AdF support for a proposed bill of harsh migration measures, which was rejected by parliament. Does that mean the gambit failed?
I think it's too early to make a final judgment on whether this move was strategically successful. The aim was to create more space for centrist parties to advance stricter migration policies without being accused of pandering to the far right. What we can say is that the move has not affected the CDU’s comfortable lead in the polls despite the harsh criticism received from other mainstream parties. So, we’ll see if the next government, which the CDU is expected to lead, can advance stricter migration policies. It's interesting to note that the Christian Democrats are one of the few center-right parties that remain competitive in Europe. In most other countries they have been eclipsed by formations advocating more radical policies on migration. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is trying to avoid this fate.
So, do you expect the CDU to rule in coalition with other parties, and if so, what does that mean for governance?
Yes, we expect the CDU to form a coalition with the Social Democrats and, if necessary, another party as well. Single-party majorities or minority governments are very uncommon in the German system. Of course, coalition means compromise, which could lead to an indecisive reform agenda that is not sufficient to address the issues we see at the moment. But maybe this time will be different and the mainstream parties can rise to the occasion. They know that the AfD is waiting in the wings and eager to capitalize on any governmental dysfunction in the 2029 elections.
When will we get some indication about the cohesion and strength of the next government?
The post-election coalition talks that will start shortly after the elections will give us an idea about what the next government wants to do and what – beyond the parties’ campaign rhetoric – is really possible. The war in Ukraine will also start to have an impact at this point, as the new government will have to contemplate the policy implications of Trump’s push to broker a cease-fire and get European countries to assume more responsibility for Ukraine’s security. The German mindset is very domestically focused, and the government will very likely be faced early on with requests to shoulder a massive new military exposure.
Edited by Jonathan House, senior editor at Eurasia Group.
German conservative CDU candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a campaign event in Vechta, Germany, on Feb. 19, 2025.
Election-eve shifts in Germany?
A poll of polls published by Politico.eu finds that support for the center-right CDU/CSU has fallen three points in the past three months, from 32% to 29%, while backing for the far-right Alternative for Germany, or Afd, party has risen three points over that period, from 18% to 21%. Support for the incumbent center-left SPD has been stuck near 16% for the past year.
What might change minds or help the undecided decide? According to that YouGov survey, about 27% of Germans get at least some of their political news from social media sites like X, Facebook, Instagram, and others. But that number jumps to 40% among AfD supporters and 43% for backers of the far-left party known as The Left.
The CDU/CSU is very likely to win, making Friedrich Merz the country’s new chancellor. But he’s likely to lead a coalition government with a weak mandate, in part because he has vowed to reject any cooperation with the AfD. The likeliest outcome appears to be a grand coalition between the center-right and the center-left SPD, but an 11th-hour surge in support for the AfD could force Merz to include smaller parties in his coalition.Police takes pictures of a car after some 28 people were hurt when a car driven by an Afghan asylum seeker plowed into a crowd in Munich, Germany, February 13, 2025.
Third attack by migrant in three months heightens tensions ahead of German election
A 24-year-old Afghan man plowed a white Mini Cooper into a crowd in Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people in the third attack by a migrant in Germany in three months.
The incident comes just 10 days before nationwide elections in which the German far right is on track for its biggest victory since World War II, with polls showing the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party, or AfD, cruising to a strong second-place finish behind Friedrich Merz’s conservative coalition.
Bavarian Premier Markus Söder — from the sister party in Merz’s center-right alliance — described Thursday’s incident as a likely “terrorist attack.”
In January, a 28-year-old Afghan man wielding a knife attacked a group of preschool children in a park in the southern city of Aschaffenburg, killing two, including a 2-year-old boy. In December, a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian national rammed a BMW into a crowded holiday market in the eastern city of Magdeburg, killing six and injuring 300.
Thursday’s assault came the same day another Afghan migrant in his 20s with suspected jihadist motives went on trial for allegedly killing a police officer and wounding five others in a stabbing rampage at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim last May.
Despite ruling out any alliance with the AfD, Merz’s coalition and the far-right party voted together to nearly pass legislation last month calling on Germany to turn back far more migrants at its border. The AfD, meanwhile, has pledged to fight for mass deportations under a policy Europe’s anti-immigrant parties are calling “remigration.”
“The safety of the people in Germany will be our top priority. We will consistently enforce law and order,” Merz wrote in a post on X in response to the attack. “Everyone must feel safe in our country again. Something must change in Germany.”
Alice Weidel, AfD national chairman, waits on the sidelines of her party's national convention for a TV interview to begin. The AfD wants to adopt its election program in Riesa.
What is “remigration” and why is the German far right calling for it?
European media is abuzz with a new term embraced by Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party chair Alice Weidel during her disturbing speech at the far-right party’s leadership conference on Saturday: “remigration.” AfD has surged to second place in national polls ahead of Germany’s Feb. 23 election – following four years of anemic growth and ineffective government. The party has also enjoyed support from American right-wingers like Elon Musk, who streamed Weidel’s speech on his social media.
What is “remigration”? A term popularized in the German-speaking world by Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner, it refers to forcibly removing immigrants who refuse to integrate with German culture, regardless of their citizenship status. In other words, a German of Turkish or Syrian descent, born and raised in the country, could be expelled, though just how the scheme would work is not clear.
Eagle-eyed readers will recognize this as ethnic cleansing in a fancy dress, and given Weidel’s attempts to portray herself as electable, her embrace of the term is striking. She may have felt emboldened by the AfD’s state-level victories in September in Thuringia, where reactionary Björn Höcke ran the show. Notably, Weidel’s crowds have taken to chanting “Alice für Deutschland!” — a deliberate homophone of the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland!”
Will AfD take power? Probably not — they’re 10 percentage points behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union, and they are reviled by all other parties. But given how strongly the far right is performing in Europe, the party’s agenda can push political discourse further to the right. In addition to remigration, Weidel wants to close Germany’s borders, quit using the Euro, and start buying Russian gas.
Even if the AfD loses, it will have its largest-ever voice in the Bundestag. The CDU will need a coalition, but negotiations with the next largest parties are likely to be fraught. We’re watching for extended gridlock in Berlin.
Heavily armed police officers secure the scene. A car has crashed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg. Several people are killed and many injured.
Germany grapples with extremism after Christmas market attack
The Saudi doctor accused of killing 5 people in the Magdeburg Christmas market on Friday appeared in a German court on Saturday.Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was charged with five counts of murder, multiple attempted murder and multiple counts of dangerous bodily harm in an attack which also wounded over 200 people. One of those killed was9-year old André Gleißner, described by his mother in a social media post as “my little teddy bear”. A GoFundMe for the family has raised tens of thousands of dollars.
Anger is growing over missed opportunities to prevent the attack. Riyadhhad flagged the suspect to German authorities last summer,citing a post where he threatened that Germany would “pay a price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees. At the same time, al-Abdulmohsen called himself a“Saudi atheist” and evinced sympathies for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
On Friday, the AfD held a 2000-person rally at a memorial site near the market, calling for “Remigration”, and chanting “Migration Kills.” The incident has putmigration and national security front and center in Germany’s upcoming national election, anticipated for February 23. The AfD is currently polling at around 19%, second only to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at around 33%, but all other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with them.