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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.

Alice Weidel, center, and Tino Chrupalla, center right, both federal chairmen of the AfD, applaud at the AfD party headquarters during the preview of the European elections in Berlin, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (Joerg Carstensen/dpa via AP)

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Friedrich Merz, Federal Chairman of the CDU, speaks after the first screenings at a press conference in the Konrad Adenauer House, Berlin, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (Fabian Sommer/dpa via AP)

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A woman votes for the European elections at a polling station in Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

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Katharina Moser, dressed in traditional Black Forest attire.  with a red Bollenhut hat, votes for the European Parliament elections at the polling station in Gutach im Breisgau, Germany, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (Silas Stein/dpa via AP)

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A woman in a European hoodie throws her ballot into the ballot box for the European elections at a polling station in Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (Andreas Arnold/dpa via AP)

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Ursula von der Leyen, left, President of the European Commission, walks to a ballot box outside a polling station in the Hanover region with her husband Heiko to vote in the European Parliament elections, in Burgdorf, Germany, Sunday 9 June.  2024. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP)

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz votes in the European Parliament elections, in Potsdam, Germany, Sunday, June 9, 2024. Tens of millions of people across the European Union voted in the EU legislative elections on Sunday as part of a massive exercise in democracy that should move the bloc to the right and reorient its future.  (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

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Alice Weidel, center, and Tino Chrupalla, center right, both federal chairmen of the AfD, applaud at the AfD party headquarters during the preview of the European elections in Berlin, Sunday, June 9, 2024. (Joerg Carstensen/dpa via AP)

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