All of the other parties have ruled out working with AfD. But no other coalition makes any sense. Disaster looms.
In German elections if a party does not reach a 5 percent threshold they get generally receive no representation.
But it is my understanding that if an individual candidate in a district wins outright, that person does get a seat. Thus it’s possible to have some trivial representation without meeting the threshold.
CDU/CSU Still Leads
DW reports As German Election Nears, CDU Still Leads in Polls
Tensions are increasing as Germany’s February 23 federal election draws closer, with the campaign becoming rougher as candidates fight for every vote.
But the mood grew even more tense after the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), currently leading in the polls along with the allied Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), introduced two motions and a bill into parliament to tighten immigration and asylum policies.
The conservative bloc was unable to agree on a joint approach with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) of Chancellor Olaf Scholz or the environmentalist Greens. But CDU leader Friedrich Merz decided to forge ahead anyway, accepting the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in order to get a majority for the motion with his five-point-plan on January 29. Two days later, however, Merz failed to get anti-immigration legislation passed, despite continued far-right support.
The SPD, Greens and Left Party accused the CDU leader of breaking a consensus of non-cooperation with the far right that has held in post-war German democracy since 1949. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against Merz’s actions.
Almost one in four agree with the CDU’s push to limit migration, but not if it involves accepting help from the AfD. Another quarter of voters rejected the CDU approach in the Bundestag as fundamentally wrong, including the majority of SPD, Green, and socialist Left Party voters.
Should Other Parties Cooperate with AfD?
Germans are sharply divided on the issue. Around 49% of those polled said it was unacceptable to pass a law with AfD votes, while 44% said it was. Some 56% of respondents found it unacceptable for a party to draw up laws in parliament with the AfD, and 66% rejected the idea of including the AfD in forming a government.
On Monday, Merz told party delegates that he would not enter into any form of cooperation with the far right, which he described as his party’s main adversary. The CDU, he said, could not work with a party that wants to leave NATO, the euro and the European Union — but do people still believe him?
SPD heading for an election disaster
Scholz’s poor ratings are reflected in the general opinion polls. If an election were to take place this weekend, the SPD would only get 15% of the vote — 10 points lower than in the last federal election in 2021.
Meanwhile, the votes the CDU instigated in the Bundestag have apparently not damaged the party’s ratings. In the current ARD-Deutschlandtrend, the CDU has increased slightly and extended its lead to 31% — as has the AfD, which has increased its vote share to 21%. The Greens have lost some ground and now have 14% (-1), while the Left Party has a prospect of entering parliament with 5% of the vote. But both the new populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the former member of the outgoing center-left coalition, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) are tipped to garner less than the 5% of the vote necessary for representation in the Bundestag.
What Coalitions Are Possible?
Together, the CDU and AfD would have a comfortable majority of the seats in parliament.
There would also be government options for the CDU/SPD and CDU/Greens. The SPD, remains the party that more voters say they would like to see as a coalition partner for the CDU. Some 19% (+1) favor the AfD, 14% (-2) and the Greens in this role.
Among CDU supporters a coalition with the FDP (36%) or the SPD (32%) are the most popular. Only 8% are in favor of a coalition with the Greens, and only 6% want to form a coalition with the AfD.
Overall, concern is growing that it could be difficult to build a stable government.
What Coalitions Make Any Sense?
There is only one CDU/CSU + AfD.
Granted they differ on NATO, the euro, and the European Union but they agree on immigration, business policy, and Green nonsense.
A CDU/CSU + Green coalition is mathematically possible if all the bubble parties crash out. That would make a majority mathematically possible but idiotic. The only things the coalition would totally agree on is the Euro.
A CDU/CSU + SPD “Grand” coalition is also mathematically possible if all the bubble parties crash out. But we have had three failed Grand coalitions already. The two party heads are fighting.
If all the bubble parties but Other survive (that ~6 percent is guaranteed dead), then the two-way coalitions may be dead as well. And three-way coalitions will be unstable and blow up just like the current one did.
Green Nonsense
The Wall Street Journal reports Germany’s Election Dodges Its Climate Debacle
The mainstream parties tiptoe around the green fiasco that is devastating the country’s economy.
Europe’s largest economy holds an election in a little more than a week. The country is in the middle of an economic omni-crisis, and the most acute pain for households and businesses alike concerns energy. You’d think, therefore, that energy would be front and center in the election campaign. You’d be mostly wrong, because, well, this is modern Germany.
German households and businesses pay among the highest energy prices in the world. The average German household paid 39.5 euro cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity in 2024, compared with 32.1 in Britain, 27.8 in France and 14.9 in the U.S. Midsize industrial users pay 24.8 euro cents per kilowatt hour, better than Britain’s 46.4 but much worse than France’s 16.7 or America’s 7.4. (A euro cent is worth slightly more than a U.S. cent.)
Blame a green-energy transition that’s been under way for some 20 years. Germany has steadily removed affordable mainstays such as coal from its power mix, while also phasing out dependable nuclear power. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine heightened the contradictions of the energy transformation. The economy had come to rely on cheap Russian natural gas to offset all Germany’s other energy expenses. With that stopgap no longer available to the same degree, nothing shields the German economy from Berlin’s energy mistakes. Result: two years of recession and accelerating deindustrialization.
The small Free Democrats triggered this election when leader Christian Lindner, then the finance minister in a coalition with Messrs. Scholz and Habeck, published a paper arguing that Germany’s climate policies are nuts. He posited that Berlin needs a wholesale reappraisal of the (big) costs and (overstated) benefits of a green transition. Yet since then, Mr. Lindner has campaigned primarily on pledges to rein in excessive bureaucracy and preserve the constitution’s balanced-budget amendment.
That leaves the Christian Democratic Union, led by Friedrich Merz, who’s in pole position to become the next chancellor. Mr. Merz probably understands Germany’s energy problem, and perhaps if left to his own devices would solve it in the obvious way: pulling back from renewables and doubling down on cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas (imported from sources other than Russia) and nuclear.
His party, however, isn’t there. The energy transition was launched by former CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel, and she started the country’s exit from nuclear power in 2011. As is typical for European center-right parties, the CDU still houses a greenish wing that really, truly believes in the climate agenda.
This explains why the CDU’s promises on energy policy are such a mishmash. The party pledges to lower the hated network surcharge—currently around 30% of household electricity bills, according to energy-industry lobby BDEW—meant to pay for the enormous cost of building a grid suitable for renewables. How this promise will be funded is a mystery. Unless Germany scales back its renewable ambitions, grid upgrades will have to be paid for in some way. The federal government already spends billions of euros each year offsetting this charge for large industrial users and is brushing up against the balanced-budget amendment.
Germany’s parties can’t admit the depth of the energy disaster because the voters haven’t recognized it themselves.
The exception is the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on the far right, which argues forcefully against a forced march into a green-energy future and currently polls around 20%. This party has achieved that level of support despite worrying fascist tendencies because it’s been a consistent skeptic of an open immigration policy voters once accepted but now dislike. A dispiriting conclusion from this year’s election campaign is that mainstream parties are handing AfD a similar opportunity on energy and the economy as politicians’ squeamishness about frank climate talk persists.
What to Expect?
Since no coalition makes any sense but the one CDU/CSU rejects, expect months of bickering followed by the formation of a dysfunctional and unstable coalition.
The only other possibility is CDU leader Friedrich Merz breaks his pledge and forms a coalition with AfD. I rate that a 5 percent chance.
What About Trump?
Germany can expect a nightmare. This one is 100 percent.
Trump wants defense spending at 5 percent of GDP when Germany does not even spend 2 percent.
Germany has one of the worst infrastructures in the EU (internet, fiber lines, phones, and trains). And as discussed above, Germany is deindustrializing having over-relied on diesel and analog phones while avoiding AI and EVs.
Finally, Germany has a trade surplus with the US of $85 billion that Trump vows to flatten with tariffs.
Germany is in piss poor economic and piss poor political shape.
A crisis looms.
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