Germany's Domestic Politics Thickens

The German government coalition may be on thin ice: social tensions are increasing while means are finite and tight because money is simply running out, said Bence Bauer, Director of the Hungarian-German Institute for European Cooperation of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). According to the expert, there has been overspending in recent years (Ukraine, re-arming, migration, accelerated energy transition), and now there are hardly any funds left to tackle specific social and economic crisis issues.

GERMANY-POLITICS-AGRICULTURE-FARMERS-PROTEST Fotó: ODD ANDERSEN

While it is impossible to make clear generalizations on a national level because of the East-West divide, how can one describe the political mood in Germany at the moment?

The mood is at rock bottom, with 82 percent of those polled considering the work of the Olaf Scholz led federal government to be bad. Discontent and social frustration are running very high, especially in the East. According to the latest national opinion polls, the CDU/CSU party alliance stands at around 30-32 percent at the federal level, while the three governing coalition parties collectively barely hit that figure: SPD 13-14 percent, Greens 14 percent, FDP four to five percent. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is between 22 and 24 percent, and clearly has much more support in the East, i.e. there is a West-East divide, with the AfD much more popular in the East, while the Greens are particularly disliked there. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz must now eat what his government has cooked up (Photo: Clemens Bilan)

For months now, the Alternative for Germany party has been relentlessly gaining ground. When will this stop and can it continue until 2025?

The party was founded in 2013 and was initially able to successfully take off on the euro bailout issue. Later on, it focused attention on the migration crisis with all its problems, such as public security, social services, education, housing, but especially the financial burden and irresponsible spending involved. If the traditional parties, especially the governing ones, cannot address this problem very quickly, they will drive support for AfD even higher. The AfD has from the very beginning highlighted the problems of migration and all its consequences. Unfortunately, events have proved the AfD right.

However, the polls - for the moment - also show a relatively high rejection rate among undecided or dissenting voters. In other words, the party's potential for further growth beyond the current level is modest.

It also remains to be seen how many voters former left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht's new recently founded formation, which takes a similar position to the AfD on a number of issues, will be able to lure away from the party.

The AfD's success seems to be a real thorn in the side of other parties, who are doing their damnedst to throttle them. What are the chances that they can, for example, ban the party in certain places or prevent them from taking part in the elections?

In Germany, there is a provision for the Constitutional Court to ban a party that actively seeks to abolish and subvert the so-called " liberal democratic basic order" (freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung, or fdGO). This has happened twice before, both times in the 1950s. It is also possible to ban some of the party's regional organizations. In that case, it would not be allowed to stand in elections there, thus preventing its potential success. The German political elite is divided over the issue of a ban. The governing parties are more often heard calling for a ban on the AfD while the CDU less frequently, but the CDU's left-wingers (state premiers Daniel Gunther and Hendrik Wust) keep the issue on the agenda. In a recent interview, party leader Friedrich Merz warned against stigmatizing the AfD, and thus its voters, as a Nazi party.

The party is soaring with co-leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel (Photo: Sebastian Willnow) 

In recent weeks and months, Germany has faced farmers' protests, railway workers' strikes and endless complaints from health workers. When will the point come when the federal coalition government should be seriously worried? What instruments does the government have at its disposal to contain the anger?

The governing coalition's options are limited, because money is simply running out. For the past few years, the government has been overspending (Ukraine, armament, accelerated energy transition), and today, there are scarce resources to draw on to tackle specific social and economic hotspots. In my view, we have already reached a point when there is serious cause for concern for the federal government.

Migration is also a rather controversial topic in Germany. On Friday, the so-called citizenship law was pushed through the Bundestag. What could be the implications if the measure is actually introduced?

On January 19, the Bundestag adopted the so-called "Citizenship Act", which allows people to apply for German citizenship after five years of residence in Germany. In some cases, such as good performance at work or school or successful integration, people can apply for citizenship after three years. In the legal practice so far, successful integration was understood rather loosely. Take for example a knife attack committed by a person who was considered to have been "successfully" integrated because he played for a German football team. 

There are currently 12 million non-German migrants living in Germany. The majority would now be eligible for citizenship and would be able to vote in the elections right away. Right-wing parties are not very popular among migrants, so the governing coalition is likely to benefit from their votes.

German citizenship will soon be easier for migrants (Photo: Miguel Barreto)

A growing number of schools say that some young migrants team up to form a kind of Sharia police and want to force Islamic rules on the school. How much should we fear that extremist religious views will become more prevalent in German society?

This threat already exists, especially in big cities. Expressing extremist, especially ant-Semitic, sentiment has become commonplace among Muslim migrants. For years or even for decades, these tendencies have been inherent in German society and in immigrant communities living there. In many cases, those coming from foreign cultures were not integrated. Following the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, the incidents with crowds of migrants chanting anti-Israel and ant-Semitic slogans in several cities across Germany were a wake call for the German public. The Germans grew aware of the magnitude of the problem they had imported into their country. And the chances of undoing this are rather low.

Cover photo: Tractor with effigies of (from left) German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, German Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Photo: Odd Andersen/AFP)