Germany in the grip of post-election blues

The parliamentary elections in Germany followed the predicted lines. The conservative centre-right Christian Democrats under Friedrich Merz became the single largest party with 208 of the 630 states in the Bundestag, with 28.5 per cent of the vote.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had come second with 152 seats and 20.8 per cent of the vote, followed by the centre-left Social Democrats under outgoing Chancellor Olaf Sholz at the third place with 120 seats and a 16.4 per cent vote percentage with the Greens winning 85 seats and 11.6 percentage vote share.

It means that the Christian Democrats cannot form a government on their own. They may have to reach out to the Social Democrats with whom they had fought a bitter battle on the economy and immigration. The far-right AfD had surged to an alarming degree and it is feared that in the next election in 2029 they would be in the driver’s seat as it were.

The conservative leaders Merz had so far not held any government position and it is feared that he would lack the skills to steer a coalition government through a difficult period. But Merz and former Chancellor Olaf Scholz are agreed that US President Donald Trump’s stance on Ukraine and his overtures to Russia are not acceptable to Europe. Merz recognises that the unity of Europe is the most pressing need, and that there is need to break free of the United States. He even sees the possibility of the disbanding of NATO with the US moving towards Russia.

But Germany is not in a position to make a difference on its own, and yet it is an important player for the future of Europe. Guntram Wolff of the Brussels-based thinks-tank Bruegel told Bloomberg, “Germany is too small to be leader of all of Europe, but too big to be just any other European country – that’s exactly the problem that Friedrich Merz will face. He has to find the right coalition. He has to work with key European allies and the European institutions. And I think he is aware of that.”

Any government in Germany needs to make constitutional amendments to enable state governments to increase their debt limits. And the AfD and the Greens are opposed to this. And they are also opposed to any military and financial aid to Ukraine. The AfD and the Greens will join hands to obstruct constitutional amendments to tackle the economic crisis, and they will also oppose unity on the foreign policy issue of supporting Ukraine. It is a bizarre political situation.

Meanwhile the democratic prominence of the far-right parties in Europe is growing at an alarming rate. In Italy, the rightist government led by Giorgia Meloni is already in power. The French far-right National Rally under Marine Le Pen came third in last summer’s National Assembly elections with 143 seats behind President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble with 168 seats, and the new left front, the New Popular Front, won 182 seats. The AfD is making a rapid progress on the political front in Germany.

It looks like that Europe and the United States are going through a reactionary phase as they did 100 years ago in the 1920s. While the US had moved to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, the European countries went far right. The far-right parties in Italy and in France consider the Nazis as taboo. Meloni has cautioned her Brothers of Italy to distance themselves from fascism and Benito Mussolini, and Marine Le Pen had moved away from her father’s anti-Semitism.

National Rally party leader Jordan Bardella cancelled his speech at the Conservative Parties Action Conference (CPAC) when Trump’s former aid Steve Bannon made a Nazi salute. It is to be seen what will be the limits that the European far-right parties will follow.