Poll shows German Chancellor Merz's approval ratings are up – DW – 07/07/2025
Does Germany still need the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and if so — on what issues? This question was clearly hanging in the air at the party conference at the end of June. The center-left Social Democrats were shaken to their core by the February federal election, when the party recorded its worst result since 1887.
The result of the latest monthly poll is unlikely to lift their spirits. The SPD, which governs as junior partner with the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties, has only continued to leak support since the election.
If national elections were held this Sunday, the SPD would only get 13%, according to the poll, conducted by the research institute infratest-dimap of 1,312 eligible voters between June 30 and July 2.
Led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the CDU/CSU has gained slightly compared to June, rising to 30% (+1). The Alternative for Germany (AfD), the far-right, anti-immigrant party that is officially considered partly right-wing extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, would still have 23% of the vote.
The Green Party and the Left Party, meanwhile, could expect to receive 12% (+/-0) and 10% (+1), respectively. Other parties, including the newly founded Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) (4%; +/-0) and the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) (3%; -1), would still not have enough of a vote share to enter the Bundestag.
The more left-wing members of the Social Democrats have accused their party leadership of doing too little to secure peace in Europe. In June, they issued a manifesto calling for "peacekeeping in Europe through defense capabilities, arms control, and rapprochement." For the signatories, this means more diplomacy with Russia, and less rearmament of the German armed forces.
Peace has historically been a signature priority for the SPD — going back to the days of Chancellor Willy Brandt's attempts to normalize relations with the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But in the latest Deutschlandtrend poll, only 11% of respondents now said they considered the SPD to be a party of peace.
Some 31% trust the CDU/CSU most of all the parties to establish and secure peace in Europe, while 14% named the AfD. As many as 57% of respondents said they were frightened by how lightly the term "readiness for war" is currently being discussed in Germany. However, there are big differences on the issue between Germans from the former West and the former East — the term frightens significantly more people in the eastern German states.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, also of the SPD, has long been calling for the Bundeswehr to be "war-ready" again. Some 62% of those Germans surveyed in the agree with Pistorius and see this as a prerequisite for securing peace in Europe.
Not only that, 73% believe that Germany needs more soldiers to defend the country in an emergency. In their opinion, compulsory military service, which was suspended 2011, must be reintroduced.
Overall, more than half of those surveyed are in favor of reinstating compulsory military or civilian service for both men and women. However, there is a generational conflict here: About twice as many people under the age of 35 support another suspension than in the overall population.
Overall, armed conflicts, peacekeeping, and foreign policy is only the fourth most important issue for Germans — mentioned by 15% of those surveyed. Immigration/refugees (33%), the economy (21%), and social injustice (16%) were all mentioned more frequently.
Indeed, both the CDU/CSU and the SPD have said that Germany's economic recovery is the top priority. In fact, only 20% of Germans believe that the situation will actually improve in a year's time, while 41% believe that nothing will change, and 35% even expect the economic situation to deteriorate. However, two-thirds of those surveyed say that this will not affect their personal economic situation.
A good 60% of the population, meanwhile, believe that there is social injustice in Germany, the highest figure recorded by the Deutschlandtrend in 15 years. This perception is primarily due to the widening gap between rich and poor, while the tax and social security burden is perceived as too high or unequal. The gap between the lowest wage groups and the "citizen's income," as the basic unemployment benefit is called, is considered too small.
In Germany, single people who are temporarily or permanently unable to support themselves and are in need of assistance receive €563 ($663) per month, as well as support with their rent and heating bills. Couples receive €1,012. The overall costs of this have risen sharply recently, to over €50 billion per year.
The CDU wants to introduce tougher sanctions for citizens' income recipients who repeatedly refuse work. Currently, their benefits can be suspended for up to two months.
Overall, around half of those surveyed consider the existing sanctions to be appropriate, while 12% think they go too far, and 35% believe that the unemployed should be sanctioned more.
In their coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD agreed in principle to apply stricter rules. But the parties are arguing about what exactly that means. The CDU/CSU wants to drastically reduce spending across the board, while the Social Democrats are opposed. They say that no more than €4.5 billion can be saved in the next two years. Getting people into work also costs money, for example for further training and qualification measures.
Should the unemployed be placed quickly in reasonable jobs, or is it more important to provide them with appropriate training and further education so that they can find better jobs? Opinions are divided.
However, a look at party preferences shows that the majority of CDU/CSU and AfD supporters would prefer to get people into jobs quickly. Supporters of the Left Party and the Greens, on the other hand, prefer to prioritize training. Among SPD supporters, there are equal numbers of people in favor of either option.
The dispute is not just about money. It is also a fundamental socio-political debate about how to treat people who need help and what basic social security in Germany should look like.While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter, Berlin Briefing.
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Chancellor Merz and the E3: Germany pivots toward Europe – DW – 07/19/2025
A new tripartite alliance between Germany, France and the UK has emerged in response to the threat from Russia and doubts about US support for European security. Germany has had an official friendship with France for more than 60 years in the form of the Elysee Treaty. Now there is also one with the United Kingdom— the first comprehensive bilateral treaty between the two nations since the end of the Second World War. Above all, the treaty signed on Thursday provides for close security and arms cooperation, including mutual assistance obligations in the event of a crisis, though this is something that has long existed within NATO. A few days before German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed the treaty in London, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte also paid a state visit to the UK that lasted several days, including a carriage ride with the royal couple and a state banquet. Their visit, too, was primarily about the security of Europe's two nuclear powers. Merz, Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also traveled together on a train to Kyiv a few weeks ago to assure Ukraine of their continued support. Photos from the trip show the three of them in relaxed and informal conversation. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk joined them after taking another train. "E3" is the relatively new acronym for the cooperation between the three major western European nations of Germany, France and the UK. Although France and Germany are already close partners within the European Union, the UK has been on the sidelines since Brexit, when it withdrew from the 27-member political and economic union. But these differences have been set aside to address two pressing issues: the threat from Russia and uncertainty over whether US President Donald Trump would back European NATO states in the event of war. The nuclear deterrence of France and the UK, as Merz has repeatedly hinted, could supplement US protection for Europe, and perhaps even replace it in the longer term, should Washington turn its back on Europe altogether. Merz's inaugural visit to Washington in June was generally deemed a success, and his joint press appearance with Trump went off without exposing any major rifts. By contrast, Trump and Vice President JD Vance had snubbed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of cameras in the Oval Office in February. The scene appalled Merz at the time. Merz said little at his press conference with Trump and appeared to be nervous, while Trump talked all the more. The chancellor mainly promised more defense spending, and the US president seemed satisfied. "Trump is not interested in partnership, but in vassalage," University of Halle-Wittenberg political scientist Johannes Varwick wrote to DW. Immediately after his election victory in February, Merz said that Europe should "achieve independence from the US" in terms of defense policy. But this is unrealistic, said Henning Hoff from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). "In view of Europe's great dependence on the US in terms of security policy, openly turning away from Washington would be reckless and unwise," he wrote to DW. Varwick concurs: "There can be no question of independence," either politically or militarily, he wrote. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In London, Merz hinted that while security cooperation with the UK can supplement the US defense guarantee, it could be no substitute. In a BBC interview, the chancellor also agreed with the US President when it came to European defense spending: "We know that we have to do more on our own and we have been free-riders in the past," he said. "They are asking us to do more, and we are doing more now," he added, referring to Germany's new plans to massively increase its own defense spending. Merz, who heads Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union, repeatedly accused the previous government under center-left Social Democrat Olaf Scholz of neglecting relations with France and Poland. Immediately after taking office in May, Merz traveled to Paris and Warsaw to signal how much he values these two European partners. He appeared to instantly forge a cordial understanding with Macron, but there were tensions with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk after Berlin introduced border controls with its neighbor to prevent illegal entry. Poland does not want to take back migrants and is also now controlling its border with Germany. The border issue was a "false start," said the DGAP's Henning Hoff. "Because symbolic migration policy was more important to him than European cohesion and good neighborly relations with Poland." At the press conference with Starmer in London, Merz emphasized that the tripartite cooperation was not exclusive: "We're always bearing in mind Poland, Italy and the other also smaller European partners in whatever decision we take," he said. Nevertheless, the journey that Merz, Starmer and Macron took together to Kyiv—without Tusk or Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—was symbolic. And so far the new formula for security policy cooperation is E3, not E4 or E5.
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2 days ago
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How far-right social media impacted Germany's highest court – DW – 07/18/2025
Researchers say a far-right social media campaign — that painted a respected law professor as extremist — caused the suspension of the election of judges to Germany's highest court. Whenever there's talk of a crisis of democracy in Germany, leading politicians proudly point to the well-established independence of the "judges from Karlsruhe" — that is, the judges who sit on the Federal Constitutional Court, which is based in the southern German city. The Federal Constitutional Court is one of the highest courts in Germany and is also seen as the "fifth organ" of the country's political system, alongside the presidency, the parliament or Bundestag, the federal government and the Bundesrat, the federal council of German states. Unlike the Federal Criminal Court, which is the highest court for civil and criminal justice, the Federal Constitutional Court's job is to ensure that Germany's Basic Law — its constitution — is upheld. It is seen as the guardian of Germans' basic rights. The Federal Constitutional Court is also the only court that can decide about banning a political party. The court's decisions are widely recognized and often offer a course correction for ruling political parties. All of this is why last week's failure to elect three new judges to the Federal Constitutional Court has been so controversial. There are 16 judges on the bench, all of whom can serve 12 years. Half of them are chosen by the Bundesrat, the council of leaders of Germany's 16 states and the other half by parliament, the Bundestag. In both cases, there must be a two-thirds majority for a judge to be successfully elected. The procedure is always highly political because the court is seen as a pillar of German democracy, a symbol of the separation of powers in the German system and a defense against any politics that work against German citizens' basic rights. Although the process has never been as emotionally heated as the selection of judges for the US' Supreme Court, there have been occasional controversies around candidates. One such instance was the 2011 candidature of lawyer Peter Müller. Müller was also a politician and had only just resigned from his post as the state prime minister of Saarland. He is also a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or CDU. Obviously he was not a neutral candidate for the court — he had openly been against the immigration policies of the then-left-leaning federal government — and his application was viewed with some skepticism. Despite this, the Bundesrat voted unanimously to appoint him to the Federal Constitutional Court. Those voting for him included state prime ministers who belonged to the then-ruling, left-wing parties like the Social Democrats and the Green party. Müller left the court in 2023. As the German media outlet, Legal Tribune Online, points out, the court's mixture of opinions is exactly why it is so respected. "The Karlsruhe court thrives on its pluralistic composition," the legal specialists wrote this week. "In their collective decision-making process, the 16 judges must argue and persuade … the court's working practices depend on this collaboration resulting in constitutionally sound decisions." The Federal Constitutional Court candidate at the center of the controversy, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, is not a politician. She is a highly respected constitutional law professor at the University of Potsdam. Brosius-Gersdorf has repeatedly dealt with difficult areas of jurisprudence, including abortion and how the Basic Law's ideals about human dignity apply to both mother and unborn child. Basically, when it comes to these tricky questions, she is doing her job, just as she is supposed to. However last Friday, her candidature for the Federal Constitutional Court appeared to fail. Germany's governing coalition — with the conservative CDU in the majority and the left-leaning Social Democrats a minority partner — withdrew the election of judges from parliamentary agenda. It had become clear that the CDU and their junior partner, the Christian Social Union, or CSU, were way too resistant to Brosius-Gersdorf. That was despite the fact that the parliamentary committee selecting the three candidates had previously expressed broad, cross-party support for Brosius-Gersdorf. For Philipp Sälhoff, head of Berlin-based political consultancy Polisphere the answer is clear. "Yes, there was a campaign," he told DW. His consultancy examined 40,000 related posts on the platform X (formerly Twitter). According to Sälhoff, all the elements one might expect to see in a targeted campaign were there. "Online petitions, calls to action, formulas for [protest] letters you can send to your member of parliament, paid-for advertising and posts, or the networking of actors on social media with one clear goal: preventing the election of this candidate," he explained. Reports in traditional media are not part of this, Sälhoff explains: "A critical political report isn't part of such a campaign, rather they're legitimate and necessary when it comes to how members of parliament vote, including on Federal Constitutional Court judges." The problem is that the campaign on social media was manipulative and became increasingly problematic as disinformation and aggressive exaggeration won over the facts, he noted. According to Polisphere's research, the agitating done by right-wing organizations like Nius were particularly notable. This online platform, founded by German billionaire Frank Gotthardt who had the intention of making it into this country's version of Fox News, was shooting at Brosius-Gersdorf from all barrels, and mostly with defamatory and false information. The law professor was described as a "left-wing radical," an extremist who would have allowed babies aborted at nine months and who was against freedom of opinion. These sort of untruths were peddled to an audience of millions and other far-right media followed suit. When it was announced that the vote on the Federal Constitutional Court judges had been called off, Nius' editor-in-chief, Julian Reichelt, celebrated. "This is a good day for us," he said. "Nobody recognized that there are now new media who won't play along with the [mainstream] political-media complex." In other words, he saw the campaign against Brosius-Gersdorf as a victory over established German media. Polisphere's Sälhoff sees reasons for concern in Reichelt's proclamation of victory. "It's not about whether these kinds of media impact opinions in Germany — they've been doing that for a while already," he explained. "But to engineer a situation like this in Germany's parliament in such a short time, where it was exposed more or less out of nowhere, and right in front of the eyes of the German and the international public — that's certainly success for them," Sälhoff said. Of course, at the same time members of parliament make decisions of their own accord. Campaigns, no matter what flavor, are part of the political scenery and they regularly drum up support, regardless of one's political persuasion. This is why CDU member and former Federal Constitutional Court judge, Peter Müller, believes the fault lies with his own party's leadership. "This is a blatant failure of leadership by the CDU/CSU," he said in an interview with German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Something like this shouldn't happen." Apparently shortly before the scheduled election of the judges, CDU leader and current Chancellor Friedrich Merz and CDU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn had signaled they expected party members to support Brosius-Gersdorf's candidacy. But apparently they were not listened to. For the time being, the vote for new Federal Constitutional Court judges has been taken off the parliament's agenda. Following that, in a long television interview with one of Germany's best known talk show hosts, Brosius-Gersdorf took on a lot of the accusations that had been made against her, saying she was neither radical nor extremist. She also tried to explain her position on various issues from a legal point of view. When asked whether she would continue to seek a spot on the bench, the 54-year-old replied that if there was any danger posed by her candidacy to the court itself, she would withdraw her nomination.
DW
2 days ago
- DW
Merz defends top court nominee from 'unacceptable' attack – DW – 07/18/2025
Germany's Friedrich Merz has weighed in on a dispute causing a rift within his ruling coalition. The conservative chancellor said much right-wing criticism of top court candidate Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf had been unfair. Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday defended Constitutional Court nominee Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf against fierce criticism from the political right. A dispute over the nomination has deepened discord within Merz's coalition, with center-left Social Democrats accusing conservative figures of exploiting claims about the law professor to sabotage her nomination for ideological reasons. Brosius-Gersdorf's nomination to Germany's top court was put on hold after a dispute over media portrayals of claims about her having "ultra-left" views and unsubstantiated plagiarism allegations. Brosius-Gersdorf was proposed as a candidate by the center-left Social Democrats, the junior partner in government. Merz's conservatives unexpectedly withdrew their support, citing concerns about her views on abortion and her support for mandatory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. A scheduled vote on her appointment to the Federal Constitutional Court was postponed. However, Merz called the media scrum around the law professor in recent weeks "completely unacceptable." "The criticism that was expressed was at times unobjective, polemical, and in part personally insulting and degrading," Merz said. He warned of a climate — particularly on social media — where "massive personal defamation" is no longer off-limits. The discord between the two parties represents the first major crisis within Germany's governing coalition, which only came to power in May. Brosius-Gersdorf said in a letter that the depiction of her character as "ultra-left" and "radical left" was "defamatory and unrealistic." She also accused the German media of "inaccurate and incomplete, unobjective and non-transparent" reporting. Brosius-Gersdorf has said the regularly raised claim that she supports legalizing abortion up until birth, among other depictions of her views, was both inaccurate and disparaging. "If you categorize my academic positions in their political breadth, a picture of the democratic center emerges," she argued. In an interview with the broadcaster ZDF, Brosius-Gersdorf said she would withdraw if her nomination appeared to damage the court's reputation. "I don't think anyone could have imagined it in their worst dreams, this kind of politicization of a constitutional court election," she said. "It's extremely dangerous, because it endangers the culture of debate, the foundations of our democracy." Brosius-Gersdorf remains a candidate for the court and could still be appointed after the Bundestag's summer break. Merz, from the conservative Christian Democrats, has declined to say whether the coalition would present a new candidate. He said he believed in a good solution within the coalition. "I trust that the two parliamentary groups in the Bundestag will do well," the chancellor said. At the same time, Merz admitted that the candidature should be better prepared next time, and that personnel proposals should be discussed earlier. But, he said, there was no time pressure and talks within the coalition were ongoing. German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, from the Social Democrats, has urged "leadership and responsibility" from his conservative coalition partners. However, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Bavarian state premier leader Markus Söder, both from Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union, have both called on Brosius-Gersdorf to withdraw her candidacy. Germany's National Association of Local Gender Equality Officers warned against any such move, saying it would "send the wrong signal to enemies of democracy." The organization called the pressure on the academic part of a broader antifeminist and far-right campaign. The Karlsruhe-based Constitutional Court ensures compliance with the country's constitution, with judges elected to 12-year terms, with an age limit of 68 years. As one of Germany's most powerful institutions, it has regularly challenged both German and European politics.
