Germany’s elections on Sunday will take place against a backdrop of economic, societal and political turmoil.
Firstly, Germany’s economy is struggling. Concerns about US President Donald Trump’s potential tariffs on goods from the EU are very real for a country that, alongside China and the US, is one of the world’s three largest exporters. What is more, Germany’s share of industrial work has steadily declined, plummeting from 40 per cent in 1990 to just 27 per cent today. Its troubled industrial sector has dragged eurozone manufacturing into reverse.
Secondly, a generation after Germany’s reunification, deep societal divisions remain. Following the European Parliament election of June 2024, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party came first in former East Germany with 29.7 per cent of the votes and fourth in former West Germany with 13 per cent of the votes. The AfD also performed well in the east in the 2021 federal election.
Thirdly, the surge of the AfD goes a long way to explain today’s fractured political landscape in the largest EU member state, which saw the coalition of the Social Democrats (SDP), the Free Democratic party (FDP) and the Greens collapse in November 2024.
Amid this turmoil and division, there is one issue that unites all German political parties from left to right: immigration. According to a recent poll, the majority of Germans want their country to accept less refugees – although they would prefer this to be done through EU-wide solutions.
For Friedrich Merz – leader of Germany’s largest opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union/the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the frontrunner to be the country’s next chancellor – Germany’s social welfare system has acted as a ‘pull factor’ for immigrants. Merz has carved out a five-point migration plan, committing to a tightening of Germany’s migration and asylum law, even if this would be in violation of both German and EU asylum law (as well as the UN Geneva Convention).
Controversially, he has been accused of breaching the so-called ‘firewall’ against the AfD and of backtracking on his own position by accepting votes from the AfD to pass this motion. Although the bill was ultimately defeated in the Bundestag, Merz’s strategy was widely condemned – including by his predecessor Angela Merkel.
Merz has defended his position by claiming that the EU’s immigration and asylum system is dysfunctional, insisting that violence and crimes committed by asylum seekers must be addressed (especially following the knife attack in Bavaria and the car ramming attack in Munich), that border checks must be permanently reinstated and all irregular arrivals turned away. In effect, this amounts to a freeze on admissions and is counter to the EU’s Schengen system.
Does this sound familiar? Merz’s plan is straight out of Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s playbook. With her zero asylum policy, her harsh immigration stance has included benefit cuts and the stepping up of deportations. As European leaders aim to ‘take back control’ of their borders, Denmark has become the model they all seek to emulate. Frederiksen’s policy has indeed been successful by some metrics. In 2024, a mere 860 asylum requests were granted.
Frederiksen has remade Denmark’s Social Democrats (SD) by outflanking the Danish People’s Party’s (DPP) harsh rhetoric on migration, a policy which won her the 2019 election and the snap election of 2022. Merz is similarly trying to remake Germany’s CDU by beating the AfD at their own game – but this is not without risks.
Challenges for a Merz government
If Merz succeeds in becoming the next German chancellor, there is a real possibility that his weakening of the firewall against the AfD could help normalize the far-right party and its rhetoric. In the context of Germany’s dark past and, at a time when existing norms are being challenged and transgressed, this would be a particularly dangerous and potentially toxic outcome. In the case of Denmark, during the period 2001-11, although the DPP were not in government they still called the shots – but remained largely unaccountable.
Merz’s AfD gamble will also bring other challenges. US Vice President JD Vance’s blistering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent comments on Ukraine have left European leaders reeling. Merz – a staunch Europeanist – will be expected to lead a united European front on any future agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
But many working-class Germans, especially in parts of former East Germany, faced with rising living costs, are highly dissatisfied with what they consider to be too much money being spent on ‘foreigners’ and on support for Ukraine. After the US, Germany is Ukraine’s second-largest donor of military aid. The AfD has been campaigning on reducing German military aid to Ukraine and for pressure to be placed on the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia. This puts Merz in a tight corner as he will need to balance international expectations with domestic pressures.