Winning the most votes and providing Germany’s next chancellor — the conservative Union of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) has achieved this goal. “We won the 2025 federal election,” enthused Friedrich Merz, CDU leader and the Union’s chancellor candidate, on election night in Berlin.
The celebrations at party headquarters were muted, however. The conservatives had expected a much better result: “30% plus X,” as they said on the campaign trail.
In the end, they secured about 28% of the vote — not enough to govern alone under Germany’s electoral system. The CDU/CSU will need to find coalition partners to form the required majority.
Looking purely at the numbers, the second-place Alternative for Germany (AfD) could be an option. One in five German voters chose the populist party, parts of which are considered right-wing extremist.
“We have doubled! They wanted to halve us, but the opposite has happened,” triumphed AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on Sunday, after the results were revealed. According to Weidel, the CDU and CSU would only be able to fulfill their election promises, such as ending irregular migration, by working with the AfD.
However, during the election campaign, the CDU/CSU categorically ruled out forming a coalition government with the AfD. “We have fundamental differences of opinion, for example in foreign policy, in security policy, in many other areas, on the topics of Europe, NATO and the euro currency,” reiterated Merz on Sunday.
“You can hold out your hand as much as you like,” he told Weidel, who in turn threatened that, as the largest opposition force, the AfD would put pressure on the government. “We will hound the others, so they make sensible policies for our country,” she said.
Merz promises change
The main topic during the campaign, apart from the weak economy, was asylum policy. “You can sense the uncertainty among Germans,” is how CSU head Markus Söder analyzed the success of the AfD. People were not sure that the CDU/CSU would really implement their promises. That’s why many voters had “wound up” with the AfD, Söder said, adding: “We will do everything we can to organize a change of direction in Germany.”
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and environmentalist Greens are potential coalition partners. Both parties, which were in the previous government, must first cope with their losses. The SPD was hit hard — suffering its worst election result since 1890 with about 16% of the vote.
“That is a bitter election result for the Social Democratic Party,” conceded Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who remains in the role until the new government takes over. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius spoke of a “devastating, catastrophic result.”
Chancellor Scholz, SPD punished by voters
Scholz is the only German chancellor not to be reelected in the past five decades. His coalition of the SPD, Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) had ruled for less than three years when it collapsed in early November 2024 over budget disputes. Scholz has already announced that he does not want a ministerial role if the SPD is part of the new government.
It wasn’t only the SPD that was punished by voters. The FDP lost drastically, failing to clear the so-called “5% hurdle” of voter support — meaning they will not be represented in the next Bundestag parliament. FDP leader Christian Lindner announced his retirement from politics following the defeat.
The Greens managed to contain their losses. The party’s top candidate, Robert Habeck, spoke of a “respectable election result,” saying: “We were not so severely punished, but we wanted more, and we have not achieved that.” If the CDU/CSU needed the Greens to form a coalition, his party was ready to talk, Habeck said.
Left Party secures its place in Bundestag
The Union had already ruled out a coalition with the socialist Left Party . After the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) split from the Left in early 2024, support for the Left Party had dwindled to 3 % in the polls. However, the Left Party made an unexpected comeback on Sunday; with more than 8% of the vote, it was the surprise winner among the smaller parties.
No matter how complicated the coalition negotiations become, Germany’s future government faces enormous challenges. In view of the many pressing issues, the process of forming a government must be quick, said Merz on the evening of his election victory. “The world is not waiting for us, nor is it waiting for lengthy coalition talks and negotiations,” he said.
Germany must quickly become ready for action again, “so we can again be present in Europe and the world perceives that Germany is governed reliably.” According to the CDU, this could be more successful if the coalition agreement were designed more like a “framework” rather than hashed out in detail.
Germany faces biggest economic crisis since reunification
Merz favors economic growth, and has called for cuts to social services. The biggest challenge for the new government is financing its future budgets. Tax revenue is no longer enough to pay for all upcoming government tasks. Growing military spending, restoring broken infrastructure, transforming the country to be climate friendly — all of this will gobble up billions of euros. This comes at a time when Germany is in the midst of its biggest economic crisis since reunification in 1990.
This federal election was the first since Russia’s major offensive against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Since then, the German government has allocated about €28 billion ($29 billion) to military support for Ukraine. This has made Germany the second-biggest supporter of the Kyiv government after the US.
But conditions have changed since US President Donald Trump took office for a second time in January, and the new US government has turned its back on Europe. Further help for Ukraine is primarily a job for the Europeans, according to Washington. From now on, Europe must also take greater responsibility for its own defense capability.