Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a political record-breaker. The problem for him is these records are overwhelmingly negative and he is at risk of losing his job over them. The problem for the EU and for Europe more broadly is this has a destabilising effect far further afield. At a paltry 13%, Merz’s popularity rating is the lowest for any German chancellor since polling began.
German voters’ ardour for him started lower and fell faster than any of his predecessors. The former corporate lawyer is perceived by many to be arrogant and out of touch with their problems. He has only been in government for 16 months but under his chairmanship, Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Unionist (CDU) party has suffered three very poor showings in regional elections over the last couple of weeks. The state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern broke another record on Sunday according to preliminary results: Merz’s conservative CDU party did not even reach the 5% threshold to enter the regional parliament.
Conversely, the anti-immigration, nationalist right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – a political party Merz had promised to slash support for when he was running for CDU leadership – has performed spectacularly well. It became the biggest political faction in two out of those three recent state elections and broke another record: they have a chance at governing in one of those states, Saxony Anhalt, despite the German authorities labelling them in part anti-democratic and far-right extremist. The AfD also tops opinion polls nationally, a particularly sensitive issue for Germany after its Nazi past. The party rejects the far-right label.
Its German name, Alternative fuer Deutschland, means Alternative for Germany. That is exactly what they say voters now want. Following this month’s regional election surge in success for the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, plus its gains in Berlin – where the victors were the hard left Die Linke party – AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said on Monday that her party had effectively replaced the center-right CDU as Germany’s true Volkspartei, or catch-all people’s party. The AfD accuses Merz of failing to fulfil his key election promises to improve the spluttering German economy – once seen as the financial engine of Europe – and to find workable solutions to voter fears about immigration and security on their streets.
High time for political change, says the AfD. Merz’s position as German chancellor certainly looks wobbly. There have been rumours for weeks of a brewing palace coup, where he would be replaced by a more popular CDU politician. Possible candidate names are swirling but no individual will stick out his or her neck in public until they know they have the backing of the party.
I have reported on Germany for decades. This is a stability-obsessed country. This kind of political upheaval is deeply unusual. Even if Merz stays in post, his political clout and credibility, his room for manoeuvre inside a fractious coalition government, will be restricted.
Looking uncharacteristically forlorn on Sunday evening, Merz jumped to make a televised address even before the regional election results were confirmed. He would press ahead with tax, welfare and economic reforms to bring about prosperity, he said. “Backbone, steadfastness and patience” were required. But German patience is running thin.
Voters in Germany, as across much of Europe, have repeatedly elected traditional parties of the centre-left, such as Germany’s SPD party, or centre-right, like the CDU, since World War Two – but increasingly they feel let-down and frustrated as they fear for their economic future. Voter resentment really started to mount after the financial crisis of 2007/8, when these traditional parties were seen bailing out big banks, while families felt their savings and living standards dropped. Then came the 2015 migration crisis, when more than one million refugees and other migrants arrived by people-smuggler boats across the Mediterranean and made their way across Europe, often by foot, trying to settle in wealthier countries like Germany and Sweden. Germany took in one million people.
Integration into German society has been mixed and Germans have been shocked and scared by a number of headline-making attacks by migrants over the years, some with a history of mental illness, others linked by the German authorities to Islamist extremist groups or ideology. In December, for example, police said they arrested five individuals suspected of plotting a Christmas market attack in Munich “based on an Islamist motive”. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has had another scarring effect. Germans pay some of the highest energy costs in Europe.
The loss of access to cheap Russian energy that German car factories and other industries relied on, plus Donald Trump’s trade tariffs and aggressive economic competition from China, have had a heavy toll on this country’s export-driven economy. Germany is Europe’s, and therefore the eurozone currency’s, largest economy. It is the world’s largest single donor to Ukraine right now and it is the biggest net payer into the EU budget. When Germany’s finances are in trouble and the country turns inward because of a political crisis, the knock-on effect beyond its borders can be considerable.
Under financial pressure, Merz has been pushing hard, along with a group of other wealthier EU countries to slash their contributions to the bloc’s budget, for example. This comes at a time when the EU wants to spend more, not less, on common defence projects, migration and AI and tech. Faced with perceived threats from Russia and China, wars in the Middle East affecting energy supplies and prices, plus the unpredictability – and many in Europe say, unreliability – of the US under Trump, now is a time Europeans must stick tightly together, says Brussels. The EU is watching Merz’s travails, plus the strengthening of the AfD on the right and the hard left Die Linke too, with concern.
These regional German votes come at the start of bumper election season across the EU, where all the big powers – (including France, Italy, Spain and Poland – go to the polls. Nationalist, Eurosceptic, anti-immigration parties are predicted to do well. And Beijing and Moscow are watching closely.
