Merkel’s Exit Is Remaking Germany’s Political Landscape

It’s almost hard to believe that Germany is currently in the middle of a national election. Although the campaign season is in its heiße Phase, or “hot phase,” reminders of the looming vote are rare and subtle: unobtrusive posters and billboards of candidates and a few lingering canvassers. Even in normal times, Germany has strict laws on how and when a party can campaign—but the coronavirus pandemic has reduced the volume even more, moving much of the voter outreach online. The calm even prompted one German newspaper, Die Welt, to run a headline asking, “Is this the most boring federal election ever?”

But once you get past the banal subtleties of contemporary German politics, the seismic shifts underway become clear. On Sept. 26, voters will select their representatives for the Bundestag, the country’s parliament, and the winning coalition will replace Angela Merkel, bringing an end to the venerated chancellor’s 16-year reign. Merkel has dominated German politics for so long that friend and foe alike are having a difficult time embracing her exit from public life. She is seen by many as the steady hand that navigated Germany, Europe and at times the world through crisis after crisis. Who can fill her shoes? 

Six major parties are hoping to answer that question. At present, according to the most recent polls, the Social Democratic Party, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the Green Party are the top three contenders. But none will be able to govern alone. And regardless of the outcome, the next coalition government will have its hands full. The opportunities before Germany are considerable, but so are the challenges, reflecting the growing pains of a country that has only been unified for a little over 30 years. Will its new leaders meet the moment by setting a new course for the country—or will they continue along the path Merkel has set? 

Merkel’s 16 Years 

Merkel was never supposed to last this long. The daughter of a Lutheran pastor who grew up in East Germany, she was met with skepticism when she first became chancellor in 2005. Though she had held numerous federal minister positions throughout the 1990s as a protégé of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was a physicist by trade—studious and precise, and known for scientifically dissecting any problem into its constituent parts. She turned that calm, pragmatic and rational approach into her greatest asset, becoming a formidable politician. Meanwhile, her unassuming presence threw off her male counterparts, and her lack of charisma unexpectedly became her most charismatic attribute. 

Will Germany’s new leaders meet the moment by setting a new course for the country—or will they continue along the path Merkel has set?

One of Merkel’s key political legacies as chancellor is that she moved the Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, squarely to the center of Germany’s political spectrum. The party is the main center-right faction, but under Merkel, it often co-opted the top agenda items of its competitors to the left. The most prominent example was Merkel’s decision to phase out nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Denuclearization of the energy sector had long been one of the Green Party’s main causes, and her further emphasis on Energiewende, or the “energy transition” to renewable resources, mystified voters as to whether the CDU or Greens were the biggest champions of the issue. Merkel replicated this pattern on topics like abolishing military conscription and raising the minimum wage, and in her handling of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Meanwhile, on the world stage, Merkel was heralded as the de facto leader of Europe. She used Germany’s strong economic footing to manage security and economic relations on the continent. She also worked to find a middle ground between the great-power rivals of the U.S., Russia and China, prioritizing stability in an effort to avoid confrontations that produce Cold War-like divisions. 

Her strategy was all about balance. China is Germany’s largest trading partner—but her government nevertheless pressured Beijing on its human rights abuses and, following the European Union’s lead, has not yet allowed Chinese company Huawei to provide critical 5G components to Germany’s telecom infrastructure, citing cybersecurity concerns. Merkel similarly expanded economic and energy relations with Russia, particularly through the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project—but also imposed sanctions on the Kremlin for its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and offered medical refuge for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was poisoned earlier this year. Simultaneously, Merkel was a key partner to the various U.S. presidents that held office during her tenure, serving as a bridge between Washington and Moscow, even as relations between the two deteriorated. 

In the minds of most Germans, though, Merkel’s greatest legacy is her success as a crisis manager. During the European debt crisis in 2009, Merkel’s handling of the EU’s bailout program for Greece was applauded as tough but necessary. And when Donald Trump became the U.S. president, many felt that she filled the void he created in trans-Atlantic leadership. Perhaps the most memorable depiction of that dynamic came in a photo from the 2018 G-7 summit, in which Merkel, surrounded by world leaders, leaned over a table to stare down a petulant Trump. 

But the starkest example of Merkel’s leadership came amid the political turmoil of the 2015 refugee crisis. When hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees, primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, arrived in Europe, they were initially blocked by Hungary from progressing further west. Then Merkel made her now-famous declaration, “Wir schaffen das”—“We can do this”—injecting an optimistic tone and a theme of solidarity into Europe’s approach to the humanitarian crisis. Germany began to take in the thousands of asylum-seekers trapped in Hungary, welcoming approximately 890,000 total refugees by the end of 2015. 

At first, Merkel’s decision was greeted with much fanfare across Germany and the world. She’d made her country an exemplar by promoting a Willkommenskulture, or “welcoming culture,” that treated those fleeing civil war and persecution with humanity. But the honeymoon was short-lived. After a sexual assault and theft in Cologne was blamed on “North African and Arab” men, some Germans soured on Merkel’s open-door policy. Members of the public began to express concerns about the cost of integrating the new arrivals and their ability to assimilate. Those with the deepest anxieties and resentments toward Merkel’s policies found a new home in the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD. 

Merkel, her critics argued, had allowed the unspeakable to occur: the emergence of a populist party to her right that could be a viable competitor in elections. Conservative Germans who disliked Merkel had been told for many years that they were alternativelos, “without an alternative” to the CDU. In the AfD, they found that alternative. Originally founded in 2013 as an anti-EU party that opposed the euro and the Greek bailout, the AfD transformed into a stalwart opponent of Merkel’s immigration policies in particular and establishment politics in general, adopting the tagline “Germany for Germans.” In the next election, in 2017, support for the CDU plummeted by 8.6 percentage points, while the AfD surpassed the 5 percent threshold required for a party to enter the Bundestag. 

Merkel is not without her detractors on other aspects of her political legacy, as well. Many of her critics argue that instead of using crises for transformational change, she more often returned Germany back to the status quo ante. She looked to the German public for their preferred solutions to policy problems, and thus, they say, never truly showed leadership. The CDU is also seen as partaking in altenpolitik, or “elderly politics,” leaving the often-disillusioned younger generations without the sense that their concerns mattered. Many contend that Germany remains bureaucratic, out-of-date and in need of digitalization to bring public services online. And others still claim that Merkel doesn’t have any real beliefs and is a mere opportunist interested only in her own power. To them, her 16-year reign is proof-positive that, behind the scenes, she harbors a cut-throat political style that has decapitated would-be challengers and left her party without an heir apparent. 

After its dismal results in the 2017 election, the CDU underwent an internal debate about the future direction of the party. Should it move to the right to try to recapture some of the voters that had fled to the AfD? Or should it keep on the same center-right trajectory that produced Merkel herself? The answer became clear a year later, when Merkel announced that she’d be stepping down as leader of the CDU and was replaced by one of her acolytes, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. 

One of Merkel’s key legacies as chancellor is that she moved the Christian Democratic Union squarely to the center of Germany’s political spectrum.

The promotion of AKK, as she is known, suggested that the party intended to take a slight right turn but remain well within establishment norms. However, her reign did not last long. She stepped down just a year later due to claims that she lacked national appeal, and was eventually replaced by another Merkelite, Armin Laschet, who is now the CDU’s candidate for chancellor. 

But Laschet’s track record as CDU chairman has also been disappointing. Although he led the polls throughout the summer, recent corruption and plagiarism scandals have left him floundering. He’s offered voters neither a fresh start, nor Merkel’s brand of competence and steadiness. As a result, the CDU could find itself in the opposition for the first time in many years—and Merkel’s successes may one day be attributed not to her political acumen, but to a cult of personality. 

The Opponents

It seems the Social Democratic Party, currently Merkel’s coalition partner, may have found its moment with German voters. The country’s oldest political party, the SPD had historically represented the working class and advocated for strong social programs. But as the nature of work itself changed, the SPD’s base progressively shrank, along with its political fortunes. In the past decade and a half, it has suffered the political downsides of being the junior partner in three of the four “grand coalitions” led by Merkel’s CDU, while reaping few of the benefits.

Olaf Scholz—the party’s centrist chancellor candidate, and current vice chancellor and federal minister of finance—is running on a Merkel-inspired platform of competence, experience and stability. Throughout most of the campaign, the SPD’s polling numbers remained low, reflecting its reputation—like many center-left parties in Western democracies—for being out-of-touch and lacking in purpose. But as the election has approached and voters have soured on other candidates, the SPD’s political stock has benefited. Whether or not it can hold onto its current lead is far from certain. 

In contrast, after beginning the 2021 election with much fanfare, the Greens are faring worse than expected. The once-radical party has progressively tempered its more flamboyant excesses to focus on governance and pragmatism, with a centrist faction—the Realos—emerging to balance the hard-line Fundis. As the Realo base became increasingly more mainstream, it won over Germany’s urban professional class and made a concerted effort to appeal to voters all along the political spectrum. Climate change has become a top-of-mind issue for many Germans, so even many traditionally conservative voters who care about the environment have begun to see the Greens as a viable option. 

But the Green Party’s fortunes may have peaked too soon. After selecting Annalena Baerbock as their chancellor candidate, the Greens rose to the top of the polls—but lost this momentum when Baerbock began to be plagued by numerous scandals, including allegations of plagiarism, tax evasion on bonuses and resume inflation. Many also questioned whether Baerbock, who is just 41 years old and has never led a federal ministry or served as a state minister, has the requisite experience to become chancellor at such a pivotal moment. Still, the Greens are expected to perform well on election day. The chancellery may be out of reach, but their share of the vote will likely make them a formidable force in the post-Merkel era. 

The AfD, meanwhile, has become the new “anti-party party,” gaining traction beyond its stronghold in eastern Germany, in all 16 states. All of the major national parties have pledged not to associate themselves with it, but its members seem to relish being the contrarian opposition. Through all of the controversies, the AfD’s poll numbers have remained consistent since 2017, hovering around 10 percent, slightly down from the 12.6 percent they won in that year’s elections.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the AfD initially supported lockdown measures and even condemned the federal government’s delayed response. But once stricter measures were put in place, the AfD flipped and became progressively conspiratorial. The party vocally supported anti-mask demonstrators and anti-lockdown organizers, adopting the new slogan, “Deutschland, Aber Normal”—“Germany, But Normal”­—to reflect its newfound common cause with anti-vaxxers and COVID truthers. While it is highly unlikely that the AfD will ever be in a coalition government, its signature blend of nationalism, social conservatism and support for economic redistribution will be a force to be reckoned with in the future. 

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Free Democratic Party, known as the FDP or the Liberals, has kept its momentum since 2017, when it managed to double its vote share to 10.9 percent. As an economically and socially liberal party, the FDP is a boutique coalition of business owners, professionals and voters with a preference for laissez-faire policies. Its anchor is its charismatic and energetic leader, Christian Lindner, who boasts a large social media following and regularly gives TED Talk-style speeches to his backers. If the FDP passes the 5 percent threshold again in this month’s vote, it may play a role in forming the next governing coalition. 

Lastly, die Linke partei, or the Left, is set to maintain its current place in the Bundestag. It formed in 2007 from the merger of the Party of Democratic Socialism, the erstwhile Marxist-Leninist party that ruled East Germany, and a far-left contingent. The Left’s stronghold is in the east, but it has been able to gain supporters across Germany as an opponent to the traditional parties. Yet many remain uncomfortable with the party’s ties to Soviet rule, and, like the AfD, it is usually relegated to the fringes of German politics. 

What Lies Ahead

Although it is difficult to predict the exact makeup of the coalition government that will come together after the Sept. 26 vote, there are a few likely scenarios. The oft-vaunted “Jamaica coalition”—comprising the CDU, Greens and FDP, whose party colors resemble the island nation’s flag—may be on the horizon if Laschet can improve the CDU’s current numbers and if the FDP can reconcile its differences with the Greens. A pure-left “Red-Red-Green” coalition of the SPD, the Left, and the Greens is another possibility, if the SPD has a particularly strong showing. Other options include the “Kenya coalition” (CDU-SPD-Green); the “Germany coalition” (CDU-SPD-FDP); and the so-called “traffic light” coalition (SPD-Greens-FDP). 

Whereas Merkel sought equilibrium, the incoming government will have to make key decisions that will force it to pick sides on the international chessboard.

But no matter which parties make up the next government, they will have their work cut out for them. The first order of business will be navigating the country out of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the federal health minister, approximately 61.2 percent of all Germans are fully vaccinated. There are fears, though, that vaccinations have plateaued and that hospitals could quickly be overwhelmed come winter, when the virus may spread even faster, especially with the advent of the highly contagious delta variant. 

The pandemic has also revealed real cracks in Germany’s social support system. Though the government has provided emergency funds to companies throughout the pandemic, many small businesses and freelancers were not able to get assistance. The early vaccine rollout, meanwhile, didn’t live up to the standard of German efficiency—exposing the country’s behemoth bureaucracy and inflexible and arcane regulations. This is something for the future government to tackle, along with digitalization and upgrading the country’s broadband.

In the coming years, Germany will also have an opportunity to take a larger leadership role in international affairs. Since the end of World War II, the country has understandably shied away from exerting itself too aggressively, opting instead to focus on advancing its national interest through hewing closely to the U.S.-led trans-Atlantic alliance, promoting European integration and supporting stability in the international order. This cautious approach warrants reexamination. Germany is the most populous and economically powerful country in the European Union, and a more assertive approach, if carried out diplomatically, could bring Europe to the next level. Both the EU and NATO are in serious need of reform and a reinvigoration of their respective missions. Germany is well-placed to provide the needed pan-European leadership. 

The new German political leadership will also need to recalibrate its current relationships with the U.S., Russia and China. Whereas Merkel sought equilibrium, the incoming government will have to make key decisions that will force it to pick sides on the international chessboard. In any case, many Germans have begun to question the United States’ reliability, given Trump’s euroskepticism and current President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Trans-Atlantic bonds will remain central, but Germany may begin to show a more independent streak. 

Or, facing a deluge of thorny challenges, the next government could easily fall back to Merkel’s middle-of-the-road method. German voters have historically preferred stability over experimentation. But there is no doubt that, as Germany heads to the polls, Merkel, her legacy and the public’s judgment of it will have an enduring impact on Germany’s future.

Aaron Allen is a trans-Atlantic leadership fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.