Germany's far right wins as ruling parties decline, but conservatives lead in EU elections

Projections show that the environmentalist Greens, the second party in Scholz’s coalition, have fallen from a high of 20.5 percent five years ago to around 12 percent. Support for the pro-business Free Democrats, the third party in the quarrelsome government, was estimated at 5%. Both were significantly lower than their results in the 2021 German elections.

The center-right Union bloc, now the main opposition force, is expected to win around 30% of the vote. This is disappointing by historical standards, but consistent with his 2019 result and better than the last national election. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, the dominant party in the two-party bloc, said she was impressed by its results.

Kevin Kühnert, general secretary of the Social Democrats, said that “this is a tough defeat for us today.” He promised that “we will come back, we will make our way out of this.”

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla told ARD that “the election campaign was certainly a bit hectic, but we are used to headwinds and so this makes us stronger.” He said the “constant media fire” against his party had had no effect.

Referring to three national elections in September in eastern regions where the party is strong, he said “we want to win them and we will.” He and co-leader Alice Weidel sidestepped questions about the party’s major candidates and their futures.

Scholz’s coalition government aimed to modernize Germany but has gained a reputation for constant discord as the economy, Europe’s largest, struggles to generate growth.

Even during their campaign, coalition partners debated how to craft a budget for 2025 while respecting Germany’s strict self-imposed debt rules.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz praised the Union’s performance and called the expected results a “disaster” for the governing coalition, stressing that most voters were influenced primarily by domestic political considerations.

“In particular, this is a serious defeat for the chancellor, who was featured on posters all over the country” alongside his party’s main candidate for the European Parliament, Merz said. He described it as “the last warning” to voters before Germany’s next national elections, expected in autumn 2025.

Projections showed that the new BSW party would get around 6% of the vote. The BSW was founded by prominent opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht and combines left-wing economic policy with a restrictive approach to migration and opposition to arms supplies to Ukraine.

Germany has 96 of the 720 seats in the new European Parliament, the most for any single country.