صاحب‌خبر - What a difference four years makes. In 2021, the world watched the German elections to see who would succeed the EU’s uncrowned “queen”. Angela Merkel had become a symbol of liberal democracy in the era marked by the first Trump administration. In Germany, two colourless figures explicitly vied to replace her. Deep down everyone knew that German leadership in Europe was coming to an end. But no one could have foreseen how steep the fall would be. Today, Germany is a country struggling with itself, increasingly sidelined in Europe and the world. The second Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 largely destroyed Merkel’s rosy legacy, exposing her opportunistically soft approach to authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin and the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Under Merkel’s Social Democratic party (SPD) successor, Olaf Scholz, the country has become as pale and uninspiring as the chancellor himself. Sunday’s general election will not fundamentally change this. The outcome is predictable, in a way we have seen play out for years across Europe. Just as in Sweden in 2022, in the Netherlands in 2023 and in the European elections last year, the key issues of the campaign are immigration and the role of the far right. And just as in those cases, and many before them, this means that a far-right party, this time the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), will do very well. Unlike in Sweden and the Netherlands, however, the election will not usher the far right into power, even if the AfD continues to pull both major parties to the right, particularly on issues such as immigration. The main reason for the continued cordon sanitaire that keeps it out of power in Germany is no longer the country’s specific history, but the specific extremism of its far right. Unlike most other relevant far-right parties in Europe, the AfD is borderline extreme right, ie anti-democratic per se, despite its radical right front and the open support lent it by the US vice-president, JD Vance. Although the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, is presenting himself as the anti Scholz, he will probably end up as “insecure, weak, hesitant and timid” in government as he once described Scholz. According to current polls, Merz’s rightwing CDU-CSU bloc has been trending downward but will get about 30% of the vote, still well ahead of the far-right AfD at about 20%. However, with the far right excluded, Merz will need the support of not just the SPD but probably also the Greens to govern – although three other parties hover around the 5% threshold, which could affect the seat allocation. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to This is Europe Free weekly newsletter The most pressing stories and debates for Europeans – from identity to economics to the environment Enter your email address Sign upPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The new world order is exactly what it looks like. Are we too frozen with fear to name it? | Zoe Williams Read more Leaving aside the fact that enthusiasm for a “grand coalition” of the CDU and Social Democrats, with or without the Greens, will be low in both major parties, this new government will have to take on a sluggish economy, expected to contract for the third year in a row, in addition to a slew of other issues on which the parties are divided (such as the climate crisis and immigration). This will ensure that as Europe faces its biggest challenge in decades, Germany, the EU’s biggest power, will continue to be mainly inward focused. Though Merz will not be the new Merkel, he will bring Germany back to the centre of power in the EU, which is held by the rightwing European People’s party (EPP), of which the CDU is a leading member. The chancellor-in-waiting has already endorsed his compatriot Manfred Weber for a second term as EPP leader, after the latter rallied his European allies in a show of support for Merz last month. While more a marriage of convenience than love, it will realign Merz (though not necessarily his whole government) with the main power bloc in Brussels, as well as with the EU’s rising power broker in the east, Poland’s Donald Tusk. All of this will do little to help Europe develop the energy and unity it needs to take on Putin’s Russia and Trump’s US, though. Merz might be more supportive of increasing Europe’s military capacity and less skittish about military support for Ukraine, but his pledge to revitalise the German economy by introducing €100bn in spending cuts will make it even harder to find the money (and support) for significant investments in the German (and Ukrainian) military. In short, for all his campaign bluster, Merz is much more likely to govern like Scholz than like Merkel. Europe will continue to look for leadership as it attempts to navigate an increasingly hostile world where authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia are emboldened and its former ally, the US, has become an adversary. Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today∎​