German Election Solidifies Europe’s Sharp Rightward Turn as Far Right Surges

The results of Germany’s February 23 election have cemented a chilling trend that has increasingly characterized European politics in the 21st century: the collapse of social democracy and the subsequent resurgence of far right parties and movements, with some of their followers openly glorifying fascism.

The snap national election left no room for doubt about Germany’s sharp rightward shift. The racist, far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) emerged as the country’s second-strongest party, with 20.8 percent — roughly twice the votes it had received in 2021. This is the biggest victory a far right party has scored in Germany since World War II, and the AfD is surely the biggest winner in this federal parliamentary election. As for Elon Musk’s interference in German politics, his endorsement of the AfD appears to have played no significant role in the outcome of the election. Musk drew outrage in December for posting on X that, “Only the AfD can save Germany” and has continued to actively advocate for the party, but the far right performed no better than what polls had predicted when the snap election was called.

At the same time, the once mighty Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered its worst defeat since World War II, with 16.4 percent of the vote share. The SPD is the country’s oldest political party and has historically drawn support from industrial workers and trade unions. It has seen its vote share significantly decline over the last couple of decades, even if it did manage to win a narrow victory in the 2021 election with 25.7 percent of the vote, marking an end to 16 years of conservative-led government under Angela Merkel.

As was expected, the conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) emerged victorious, with their leader Friedrich Merz set to become the new chancellor, but fell way short of preelection polls. In fact, CDU/CSU scored its second-worst postwar result, with 28.5 percent of the vote. They will need to enter a coalition with another party, most likely with the SPD, as CDU has ruled out including the AfD in a coalition government.

Germany’s conservatives have made promises about maintaining a “firewall” to the far right, but earlier this year they actively sought to pass a controversial immigration bill with support from the AfD. Indeed, the ideological positions of the Christian Democrats — not only on immigration but also on fiscal policy — are closer to those of the far right AfD than they are to those of the center left Social Democrats. As such, a two-way coalition with the Social Democrats does not promise smooth sailing. The Social Democrats are in favor of relaxing the German “debt brake” (a cap on the federal deficit imposed in 2009), a critical factor behind Germany’s current economic woes, while both the CDU/CSU and AfD are opposed to any reforms to it. However, CDU’s Merz, who is set to be next chancellor, has said he could be open to reforming the “debt brake,” although he prefers to examine other solutions.

The Greens, a junior partner in the outgoing coalition, received 11.6 percent of the vote, while the “pro-business” Free Democrats suffered deep losses and failed to reach the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the Bundestag, the German federal parliament.

Meanwhile the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which promotes left-wing economics while some of its positions overlap with the far right, failed to cross the 5 percent threshold needed to gain seats in the Bundestag.

In contrast to the BSW, the radical left party Die Linke, which has combined left-wing economic policies with a fierce defense of immigrant rights and human rights, made a political comeback after years in crisis by coming away with 9 percent of the vote, doubling its support from the 2021 election.

Die Linke has been extremely popular among young people, especially young women, who have been responsive to its promise to fight for social justice, dignity and welfare in the traditions of democracy and socialism. The party’s surge was boosted by a fiery anti-fascist speech that its young and charismatic co-leader Heidi Reichinnek delivered in the Bundestag against the far right and those who cooperate with it. It went viral and got over 30 million views.

The far right has become normalized in Germany, and this development should send shivers down the spine of Europe’s entire political establishment.

Die Linke rebuilt itself by paying greater attention to the interest of workers, clearly positioning itself on the major issues facing the country such as housing, and becoming “involved in the society-wide debate over changes to [the] modes of production and ways of life, politically engaging with the worries and fears of the population,” as sociologist Heinz Bierbaum and Die Linke candidate Ines Schwerdtner have written. These are lessons for the left everywhere.

There are several reasons for the dramatic collapse of the Social Democrats and the surge of the racist, far right AfD party. During the short term of Olaf Scholz’s government, a fragile three-party alliance between the Social Democrats, the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens collapsed in November 2024 after Scholz dismissed his finance minister (and FDP leader) Christian Leidner over budget disputes. The German economy had been under considerable pressure, experiencing a recession for two consecutive years, high energy prices and a deteriorating labor market. But these challenges were simply beyond the competence of Olaf Scholz, and his failures not only brought an end to his reign but also made him Germany’s most unpopular leader since unification.

Polling conducted in 2023 revealed that if elections were held then, the Social Democrats would receive just 14 percent of the vote. Scholz’s popularity did not improve much in 2024, and he even faced pressure from members of his own party to step aside as the top candidate of the SPD for the snap election following the collapse of his coalition government.

Yet, the economic challenges that the Scholtz government faced and failed to address have deeper roots. Essentially the German model of growth, with its reliance on export-led growth, “fiscal discipline” and rejection of Keynesian economic ideas, is broken, as German-born journalist Wolfgang Münchau has argued in his book Kaput: The End of the German Miracle. Germany has become once again “the sick man of Europe.” And contrary to what conservatives like to claim, the culprit is not the “bureaucracy.”

At the core of Germany’s economic woes is the obsession with fiscal consolidation and unshakable belief in market forces to guide the economy (Ordnungspolitik). The so-called “debt brake,” which limits the federal government’s annual deficit to 0.35 percent of GDP and is enshrined, in fact, in the Articles 115 and 109 of the German Basic Law, is a direct outcome of the government debt-adverse, laissez-faire approach to economic policy rooted in the concept of Ordnungspolitik. But the “debt brake” acts not as an engine but rather as an anchor for the country’s economy. Subsequently, Germany has been systematically underinvesting, thus putting a break on economic growth. German public investment is one of the lowest in Europe. In fact, net public investment has dropped to zero percent in recent years, according to senior economists at Pictet Wealth Management.

Naturally, economic woes tend to translate into social problems and rising levels of political discontent. The absence of growth and rising living costs have led to a higher degree of socioeconomic polarization, and both poverty and homelessness are on the rise. In 2022, nearly 21 percent of the German population was affected by poverty or social exclusion (i.e. blocked from having access to opportunities and resources). As for homelessness, which has also grown over the last few years, the German government has put the figure at 375,000 while the Federal Working Group on Assistance to the Homeless has estimated the number of unhoused people in the country to be around 600,000. This is an extraordinary figure when we consider that in the United States, whose population is four times larger than Germany’s population, the number of people experiencing homelessness was estimated in 2024 to be slightly over 770,000.

The Social Democrats in Germany, like social democratic parties throughout Europe, have seen a dramatic decline in vote shares not because of changes in class and values structures, as the dominant narrative for the decline of European social democracy asserts, but rather because the mainstream left (for example, social democratic parties like the SDP) has shifted to the center and even to the right on economic issues with its acceptance of neoliberal reforms.

Just like the Democratic Party in the United States, Europe’s social democratic parties have drifted away from their working-class orientation, allowing in turn far right parties to gain ground with working-class voters by talking in increasingly populist ways even though most (though not all) in practice push an anti-worker agenda in the European parliament.

The key issues that the new ruling party coalition will face in Germany are the “debt brake,” immigration and climate change. The odds of the new coalition producing any transformational changes in the way the German economy works are rather slim. Yet without ditching the existing economic model, Germany will continue facing fierce headwinds for many years to come. Underinvestment and low productivity growth will likely ensure the continuation of Germany’s economic slump. A staggering 96 percent of German companies are already making plans to invest in the U.S. in the next three years, according to a 2024 survey by the German American Business Outlook.

The political impact of a generation of stagnation could prove detrimental not only to Germany’s future but to the future of the European Union as well. The far right has become normalized in Germany, and this development should send shivers down the spine of Europe’s entire political establishment. Neofascism is everywhere on the march, and AfD’s dramatic rise demands policies for transformative change rather than business as usual. The future of European democracy depends on renewing the social contract and ending neoliberalism. The AfD doubled its vote share in less than five years against the backdrop of a stagnant economy, despite being an extremist, Islamophobic and racist political party. Indeed, if Germany remains “the sick man of Europe” for years to come, all bets are off for the 2029 election.