Northeastern’s Marianna Griffini and Josephine Harmon analyze the issues facing the incoming German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and how taboos are loosening for the electorate to support far-right parties once again.
LONDON — Germany’s election results have threatened to change the order of things both at home and beyond.
They produced a new leader for the country, put the far right in second place and signaled a potential shift in Europe’s transatlantic partnership with the U.S., its longtime ally.
Conservative politician Friedrich Merz is set to become the new German chancellor after his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won the most votes in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, taking 28% of the vote.
Once he forms a coalition government in the Reichstag, Merz will replace the current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who leads the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The hurdle Merz faces, however, is that the SPD was pushed into third by the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), which doubled its support since the 2021 elections to claim 20% of the vote.
Merz may have flirted with the far right — the lawmaker drew criticism from former party rival and ex-chancellor Angela Merkel in January when he pushed through a non-binding vote in parliament on tougher immigration rules by relying on AfD votes — but he has ruled out forming a government with the party.
He has pledged that the “firewall” of non-cooperation with the far right among mainstream parties will remain in place. Instead, he hopes quick negotiations will lead to the formation of a centrist coalition.
“I imagine what we will see is a grand coalition with the SPD, the Greens and maybe with the Liberal Party,” says Josephine Harmon, an assistant professor in political science at Northeastern University in London.
“It would have to be a grand coalition if Merz’s plan is to keep the AfD out. To go into coalition with the AfD would, I think, be anathema to most of his CDU colleagues and the CSU party.”
Since the fall of fascism in Germany in 1945 after the Allies defeated the Nazis, it has been borderline taboo for voters to back nationalist and far-right parties.
The AfD, however, has managed to build up a base in the east of the country since its founding in 2013, before broadening its appeal this election.
Marianna Griffini, an expert in populism at Northeastern University, says there has been a “shift” in “what is deemed acceptable” in German politics in recent years.
“The taboo seems to have been broken or loosened at the very least,” says the assistant professor. “Indeed, it is always hard to generalize, but it is apparent that there are neo-Nazi elements in AfD. The increasing fortunes of AfD signal a break in the traditional German culture of apology towards the Nazi past.”
Sections of the AfD have been classified as right-wing extremist by domestic intelligence. Activists have been spotted making the Hitler salute, and one of its most prominent figures, Bjorn Hocke, was fined for using “Alles fur Deutschland,” a banned Nazi-era slogan.
The AfD’s ability to capitalize on worries around immigration and use terror attacks carried out by those not born in Germany for political gain is a trend echoed across Europe, where far-right support is becoming “normalized,” Griffini says.
Griffini explains that the AfD emerged as an anti-European Union outfit before leveraging its anti-establishment stance to attract protest voters. She describes anti-immigrant sentiment as being “rampant” in the party, with it highly critical of Merkel’s decision to welcome almost 900,000 Syrian refugees in 2015.
The cost of living crisis also allowed it to widen its focus by giving voice to the frustration young people feel at being held back by rising costs sparked by an uptick in inflation.
“Bread and butter politics mattered too,” Griffini adds. “The AfD has tried to attract young voters by emphasizing the economic issues they hold grievances about, such as the lack of affordable housing.”
Harmon says dealing with the impact of inflation will be one of the pile of things waiting in Merz’s in-tray, along with the “top two big issues” of reviving a stagnant economy and addressing migration.
Once the economic engine of the EU, Germany’s economy has flatlined in recent years. Harmon, a specialist in EU politics, says Berlin has been reluctant to invest in new technologies — a policy that may have to change. “It has not been keen on taking on debt in order to invest money in artificial intelligence and new energy solutions,” she says Harmon.
It is not only the domestic agenda that the chancellor-in-waiting will have to confront.
In a punchy speech Sunday after polls closed, Merz put Europe on notice that it will have to face up to a change in its relationship with Washington under the new administration.
Merz said his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe” so that it can “really achieve independence from the USA.”
Harmon says it is an early sign that Merz intends to be a more central player in European politics than Scholz, who he has criticized for being an “absentee chancellor” within the EU.
“I think a significant part of Merz’s plan will be trying to take control again, acting as a symbolic figurehead within European politics,” Harmon adds.
While Merz’s comments on Germany’s relationship with the U.S. have created headlines, Harmon argues that his comments are “stating the bleeding obvious.”
“Europe, in the absence of American military funding, has to find a way to become independent,” she says. “I think he is reflecting the expediency with which European leaders and the EU are recognizing that now.
“U.S. military support for Europe and American protection of Europe was bipartisan within America in the last 80 years, and it is now seemingly becoming a partisan issue. So in terms of long-term European planning, they need to start planning for military independence.
“The fact is that the EU is not militarily independent. It doesn’t produce enough military output to defend itself, let alone other countries. And so it is really behind the game when it comes to being militarily self-sufficient. And I think the Europeans know that there is a need to move at speed.”