Year-end state of German politics
As 2023 enters its last month, a reflection on the current state of German politics is warranted. The nation, Europe’s largest democracy and economy, has this year seen increasingly divisive politics: widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling “traffic light” coalition, a monthslong debate over the Building Heating Regulation, and intra-party divisions have made Germany’s contentious developments a top focus for Europe watchers in 2023. With the far-right populist AfD on the rise, though facing a leftist copycat movement, and the Green Party struggling, taking stock of the situation will be helpful for understanding the direction German politics are likely to take in early 2024.
As of early December, national parliament voting intention polls place the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as retaining 21% support among the German electorate. Increasing from 14% support one year ago, the AfD is now out-polling Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), which leads the current federal governing coalition and remains one of the nation’s main parties. Such a level of AfD support has not been seen since the party’s founding in 2013 and represents an alarming trend, indicating that popular dissatisfaction with Germany’s current governing coalition has translated into support for populist alternatives. The party’s right-wing tilt has attracted the attention of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, which was allowed in a March 2022 ruling to begin surveillance of the group as a “suspicious entity”. Permitting the surveillance of the party as a whole followed the BfV’s classification of its youth wing, the Young Alternative (JA), as a “certified right-wing extremist endeavor”.
The ongoing trial of Björn Höcke, the AfD’s leader in the eastern federal state of Thuringia, over his May 2021 use of a banned Nazi slogan during a speech has evidently not harmed the party’s perception by the public. As the challenges facing the current government only grow and migration remains a central issue, the AfD’s support can be expected to remain at similar levels or even increase in the first few months of 2024. However, recent events suggest that an unexpected far-left challenge could endanger portions of the party’s support.
Disagreements over policy goals and leadership have led to a recent split within Die Linke (the Left party). Historically popular in the eastern federal states, Die Linke is a successor of the SED, which governed East Germany during the period of German division, and campaigns from social justice, anti-NATO, and socialist positions. In October, divisions between the party’s moderate members and a faction led by former parliamentary leader Sahra Wagenknecht escalated into a complete split, with Wagenknecht leaving Die Linke and taking 10 of the party’s 38 parliamentary members with her. Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Wagenknecht has opposed exporting arms to Ukraine to aid in its self-defense and has spoken against sanctioning Russia, prompting some observers to label her as “pro-Putin.”
With her condemnation of the current government mirroring that of the AfD, Bjorn Höcke invited Wagenknecht to join the populists following her departure from the Left; some analysts argue that this demonstrates the AfD fears losing votes to the renegade’s new movement, which is expected to attempt to form an official party in early 2024. As Der Spiegel’s Mathieu von Rohr writes, there could indeed “be a gap in the market for [Wagenknecht’s] mix of anti-Americanism, Putin apologism, socialism, migration scepticism as well as her openness to conspiracy theories.” Wagenknecht’s strong anti-immigration rhetoric stands at the center of what may be a novel platform combining conservative-populist social positions and leftist economics. Thus, in addition to endangering her former party’s continued representation in the Bundestag (Germany’s Grundgesetz requires parties to win 5% support in elections to be represented), Wagenknecht’s move has created a left-wing populist movement capable of drawing dissatisfied German voters away from the AfD.
Germany’s environmentalist Green Party, a coalition partner in the current government, discussed its position and future at its recent party conference. Over the course of the four day conference in Karlsruhe, debates over the party’s recent involvement in asylum-restricting measures advocated by the federal government highlighted generational splits within the Greens. The Green Party’s younger members, it seems, oppose their representatives’ recent endorsement of tougher asylum measures and argue that such a shift abandons the party’s long standing asylum policy. The party has lost support since joining the ruling coalition in 2021, as it seems to have pushed too hard to take advantage of the opportunity that position presents to push its agenda. Climate protection measures, most notably the Gebäudeenergiegesetz (Building Heating Regulation), have grown increasingly unpopular in a nation struggling with high energy, heating, and housing costs, and the party has been publicly criticized by its own coalition partners. With public support for the Greens falling to its lowest in five years, the Green Party’s membership in the current division-plagued government has arguably proved more of a liability than an asset.
This state of affairs makes the likely direction of German politics somewhat difficult to predict. Novel elements like Wagenknecht’s left-wing fraction movement defy typical political trends and will likely interact with segments of the AfD’s support, potentially siphoning off voters from the resurgent right. Though the impact Wagenknecht’s movement will have on the German political space has yet to be seen, all indicators point towards continued support for left- and right-wing populist alternatives to Germany’s mainstream parties.
The SPD and Green parties’ falling approval show no signs of a turnaround, and the current government must now contend with a massive question over the budget. A recent court ruling struck down its plans to spend 60 billion euros in unspent coronavirus relief funds on a green transition, potentially endangering the practice of establishing “special funds” to pursue government priorities. Strict “debt brake” legislation limiting the rate at which the federal government can take on debt constrains the government’s choices; calls to abolish or amend the debt brake abound, and the issue can be expected to remain a major focus of German politics over the next few months.