Germany election: far right surge is ‘last warning’, says Friedrich Merz

The doubling of support for the far right in Germany’s federal election was “the last warning” to the country’s mainstream parties to provide effective leadership, Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s victorious conservative alliance, has said.

Speaking on Monday after his CDU/CSU alliance came first with 28.5% of the vote, the man who is on course to become the next German chancellor said centrist parties needed to heed the surge in support for the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

“This is really the last warning to the political parties of the democratic centre in Germany to come to joint solutions,” Merz told a press conference.

The AfD won more than 20% of the vote, about twice the share it garnered at the last election only three years ago. But it will not be part of negotiations to form a coalition government because of the German “firewall” that has historically existed between mainstream parties and the far right.

On Monday, the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel called her party’s performance “historic” and decried Merz’s refusal to enter into coalition with the AfD as a “democracy blockade”, arguing that millions of voters were in effect disfranchised by the decision.

Merz is instead preparing to begin the thorny task of forming a new government with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the party of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in what Germans know as a grand coalition or GroKo.

Together the parties gained enough seats for a majority in parliament, with smaller parties – the pro-business FDP and the leftwing conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) – failing to reach the 5% threshold needed to get into parliament.

How the centrists will be able to overcome their differences on migration policy remains unclear but it is likely to be a central plank of whatever government does emerge.

On Monday, Merz pointed to the strong gains of the AfD in the ex-communist east, where it secured 45 out of 48 available seats after campaigning vigorously on its anti-Islam, anti-immigration platform and backing the “remigration” of both immigrants and German citizens deemed to have poorly integrated.

Merz, 69, said his own conservative party colleagues had warned him that the former east was “only a few years ahead of you in the west” and that “if you do not solve the problems, then you will have the same problem”.

“We must work together to see that we solve the problems in Germany,” he told journalists, in order to “gradually deprive this party of its breeding ground”.

Basking in their success, the AfD party leaders, Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, predicted they would soon overtake the CDU in the polls.

Merz, meanwhile, made clear his focus was on the turbulent geopolitical scene as much as on domestic politics. His first comments on Monday were directed at Ukraine, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

He posted on X: “Europe stands unwaveringly by Ukraine’s side. Now more than ever, it holds true: We must put Ukraine in a position of strength.”

“For a just peace, the attacked country must be part of peace negotiations,” Merz added, in what was interpreted as a sideswipe at the Trump administration after it began talks with Russia last week on ending the war that excluded Ukraine and Europe.

Many Germans fear a re-run of the last GroKo, led by Angela Merkel between 2018 and 2021, which critics accuse of having lacked ambition, and having failed to tackle pressing challenges such as economic and bureaucratic reform, defence spending increases and an infrastructure overhaul.

“The biggest challenge of all is going to be forming a stable coalition that also has the strength to cut the AfD down to size,” said the political scientist Aiko Wagner of Berlin’s Free University.

The SPD, Germany’s oldest political party, is smarting after receiving the worst ever result in its history, with 16%. Scholz, who will remain in post as chancellor until Merz has formed a government, called the result “bitter”.

Initial analysis of the SPD’s drop in support indicated that dissatisfaction over its migration politics was the chief motivating factor. The centre-left party lost 1.7 million voters to the conservatives, and 720,000 to the AfD.

Merz is said to be pinning his hopes on managing to convince the SPD that its voters want to see similar radical migration reforms to those already proposed by the CDU/CSU, in particular closing the borders to so-called irregular migration.

He controversially won backing for this proposal in parliament from the AfD in January, while the SPD slammed the CDU’s proposals as illegal and a threat to the existence of the EU.

Merz’s aim is for a new government to be formed by Easter (20/21 April). Despite his insistence that speed is of the essence, coalition talks are not expected to officially begin until 6 March, taking into account carnival season in the Rheinland and a state election due to be held in Hamburg on 2 March.

Until then unofficial negotiations will be taking place behind closed doors.

Financial markets reacted positively to the news of the conservatives’ win, with stocks in major German companies rising amid hopes of a stable government after weeks of stagnation.