Europe trusts Berlin’s leadership, but elections in Germany will frustrate their expectations again

Four years can make a big difference. In 2021, the world was aware of the German elections to see who would happen to the “queen” without the EU crown. Chancellor Angela Merkel had become a symbol of liberal democracy in the era marked by Donald Trump’s first mandate in the United States.

In Germany, two aodine figures competed openly to replace it. In the background, everyone knew that German leadership of Europe was coming to an end. However, no one could foresee how abrupt the fall would be.

Today, Germany is a country that frees an inner struggle and that every time plays a more irrelevant role in Europe and in the world. The second Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 largely destroyed Merkel’s legacy, exposing his opportunly soft approach to authoritarian leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Under Merkel’s successor at the head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Olaf Scholz, the country has become so pale and not inspiring as the Foreign Minister himself.

Sunday’s general elections will not change this situation. The result is predictable, as we have seen throughout Europe. As in Sweden in 2022, in the Netherlands in 2023 and in the European elections last year, the key themes of the campaign are migration and the role of the extreme right. And as in those elections, and in many previous ones, that implies that an extreme right party, this time alternative for Germany (AFD), will get very good results.

However, unlike Sweden and the Netherlands, Sunday’s elections will not, in principle, the arrival of the extreme right to power, although AFD has made the two great parties of the country turn to the right and have hardened their Speech around migration so as not to lose votes.

The main reason for the sanitary cord that keeps ultra -right out of power in Germany is no longer only the history of the country, but the characteristic radicalism of the German extreme right. Unlike most other ultras relevant matches in Europe, the AFD is at the limit of the extreme right to place itself very close to a red line – that is, it is antidemocratic per se -, despite its radical right -right forehead and of the open support provided by the American vice president, JD Vance.

Although the candidate for the Chancellor of the German Cristianodemocrats (CDU), the billionaire Friedrich Merz, is presented as the Anti Scholz, will probably end up being “insecure, weak, hesitant and shy” – as described once to Scholz – when he is in the government . According to current polls, the right-wing right-wing block of Merz Low in voting intention, but would obtain about 30% of the votes, still far ahead of the Ultra-rightist AFD, with about 20%. However, if the extreme right of a possibility of ruling coalition is excluded, Merz will need support not only of the SPD, but probably also of the greens – although three other parties are around the threshold of 5%, which could affect the cast of seats.

Leaving aside the fact that a “great coalition” of the CDU and the social democrats, with or without the greens, would raise little enthusiasm in those two parties, the new German government will have to face a slow economy, which is expected That is contracted for the third consecutive year, in addition to a series of issues on which the parties are divided, such as climatic crisis and migration.

In this way, while Europe faces its greatest challenge in decades, Germany, the greatest power of the EU, will remain centered, above all, in itself and its problems.

Although Merz will not be the new Merkel, he will return to Germany to the center of power in the EU, which holds the rightist European Popular Party (PPE), of which the CDU is a prominent member. The budding chancellor has already supported his compatriot Manfred Weber for a second term at the head of the PPE, after he brought together his European allies in a sample of support for Merz last month. While it is another marriage of convenience than love, Merz – although not necessarily his entire government – will be aligned again with the main block of power in Brussels, as well as with the powerful representative of the EU in the east, the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk.

However, none of this will help Europe to develop the strength and unity it needs to face the Russia of Putin and the United States of Trump. Merz may be more in favor of increasing the military capacity of Europe and less reluctant to military support to Ukraine, but his promise to revitalize the German economy by introducing cuts of the expense worth 100,000 million euros will make it even more difficult to find the money, and Also the necessary support, to make significant investments in the German army (and in the Ukrainian).

In summary, despite all his bravuconerías during the electoral campaign, Merz is much more likely to govern as Scholz has done as Merkel did. Europe will continue to seek leadership while trying to navigate an increasingly hostile world in which authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia are emboldened and the historic ally of Europeans, the United States, has become an adversary.