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12 September 2024

New Political Lines Are Drawn in Germany

Antonia Colibasanu

Voters in the German states of Thuringia and Saxony turned out in large numbers on Sunday against the parties that presently constitute Germany’s federal coalition government: the Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party and the Greens, giving most of their votes to the opposition Christian Democrat Union but also to anti-establishment parties Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the newly established Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Though these are regional elections, they reveal much about the future of German stability and thus European stability.

In some ways, the results should not be surprising. Like the rest of Europe, Germany is facing the daunting economic challenge of balancing unemployment and inflation. The ruling coalition agreed in July to spur economic growth beyond 1 percent through tax breaks for companies in research and development, perks for pensioners who combine their pension with a job, and incentives for the long-term unemployed to find work. (Although this is hardly the first time it has struggled to solve serious economic problems.)

All the while, changes in foreign policy were slowly forming. The malaise of the 2010s, an immigration crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic called into question the reliability of supply chains over which Berlin has little control. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fundamentally challenged German conceptions of how the world worked. Thus came the Zeitenwende, a dramatic policy shift conceived by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that essentially pledged to upgrade German defense capabilities.

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