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When voters in Germany go to the polling stations this coming Sunday to cast their votes in the European elections, one question will be uppermost in many people’s minds: how well will the far -ight do?
The question is not just about how many right-wing populists and far-right extremists there will be in the next European Parliament. These elections will be an important indicator of the political mood at the national level too – in Germany as well as in the other EU Member States.
Many people are casting a worried eye at their European neighbours. At the centre-right coalitions in the once so progressive northern states. At right-wing populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has long since become part of the political mainstream in Italy. At the Netherlands, where right-wing populist Geert Wilders has succeeded in putting together a governing coalition of right-wing forces. And, not least, at France,where Marine Le Pen’s and Jordan Bardella’s Rassemblement National is enjoying a steady upswing in support.
Growing influence of the far-right in Germany
Right-wing forces are becoming increasingly influential in Germany, too. Those who thought their rise was just a temporary phenomenon, a reaction to the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, were seriously mistaken. The right-wing extremists of the Alternative für Deutschland party(AfD) have established themselves as a political force. Earlier this year they reached a new high of 23 per cent in the polls.
Now, shortly before the European elections on 9 June, the AfD’s popularity has taken a hit in the wake of a number of scandals in recent weeks. Both its lead candidates in the European elections are currently under investigation on suspicion of having taken bribes.
First-place candidate Maximilian Krah, who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019, is currently the subject of two preliminary investigations, on suspicion of having taken payments from Russia and China. A former member of Krah’s staff was arrested in April, suspected of having spied for China in the European Parliament.
Petr Bystron, Bundestag member and number two on the AfD list for the European elections, is also suspected of having received illegal payments from Russia. As a result, he has already lost his immunity in the Bundestag and he, too, is under investigation. The AfD party leadership has banned Krah from appearing in the election campaign, and has urged Bystron to refrain from doing so.
Yet the AfD is defying the scandals. While it has dropped a few percentage points in recent polls, it still stands at 17 per cent for the European election, making it the second-strongest party after the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). If, as expected, the AfD does not only emerge strongly from the European elections but also from the elections due to place in three eastern German states in September, this could significantly change politics and society in Germany for a very long time to come.
Who are the Germans voting for the far-right?
The AfD is acquiring more political power for a camp that has split away from the rest of society in many respects. Who are the Germans voting for the far-right? Working with the Research Centre for Information Technology (FZI) and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Tagesspiegel Innovation Lab has analysed data from the representative SOSEC-survey over a period of several months.
The results show how significantly the positions of right-wing voters differ from those of other parties. Those planning to vote for the AfD in the European elections are fundamentally more angry, and also more worried about issues such as the consequences of the war in Ukraine and a possible loss of prosperity. Above all, however, these voters have significantly less trust in government, administration and the media.
As in other countries, disinformation and propaganda on social media are playing a key role in the rise of the far-right in Germany
It is true that there is a “general loss of trust in the democratic parties”, says political scientist Frank Decker of the University of Bonn, one reason being the constant bickering within the governing “traffic light” coalition.
Nevertheless, a comparison of the biggest parties in Germany reveals just how much deeper this lack of trust goes among AfD voters: in May 2024, just 3 per cent of those planning to vote AfD in the European elections said they had “a lot” or “quite a lot” of trust in the government.
This is well below the 21 per cent of CDU voters who said the same thing, the next-lowest result. The highest figure was for the Greens, with 51 per cent saying they trusted the government.
Little trust in the press
As in other countries, disinformation and propaganda on social media are playing a key role in the rise of the far-right in Germany. Traditional news media do not have a good reputation among many AfD voters, with 67 per cent replying “none” or “not much” when asked how much trust they have in them. Only supporters of left-wing populist Sarah Wagenknecht’s newly founded BSW party exhibit similar levels of distrust.
The situation with social media is very different. Here, the level of distrust among AfD voters is significantly lower than for other parties. 18 per cent of them go so far as to say they trust them “quite a lot” or “a lot”.
The AfD uses social media to target its voters. Decker views this as “a real game changer”: “They are not dependent on the traditional media, so they can delegitimise them. And that catches on with people, with the result that they get more and more of their information from social media. It’s a self-reinforcing process.”
Driven by anger
What exactly is driving and mobilising AfD voters? In many cases it is anger: their anger levels are up to twice as high as those of voters for other parties. 78 per cent of AfD voters say they agree to a lesser or greater extent with the statement, “I feel very angry when I think about the current situation.” By contrast, 48 per cent of CDU voters, 39 per cent of SPD voters and just 33 per cent of Green voters say the same thing.
Hostility to foreigners, concerns about a loss of prosperity, the feeling that they are not getting what they are entitled to: these are the main issues driving people on the political fringes. According to Decker, the AfD skilfully exploits and reinforces these resentments. The AfD camp is currently “expanding and consolidating”, he says. “They are becoming increasingly extreme on the back of particular issues that used to be less politically important – migration, for instance.”
Decker describes the anger on the right-wing fringe as an “undemocratic tendency” that could “cross over into violence at some point”. And this is already happening. In recent weeks there have been repeated assaults on politicians, including those from the AfD. The most serious of these was on 3 May, when MEP Matthias Ecke, the SPD’s top candidate in Saxony, was attacked and seriously injured by a gang while putting up election posters.
Right-wingers are not in the majority
It is clear, however, that a majority of the population not only views these developments in Germany with concern, but also does not want to stand idly by while they happen. Over several weeks earlier this year, tens of thousands took part in demonstrations across the country after the Correctiv network published its investigation into a secret meeting of far-right extremists in Potsdam. And numerous solidarity rallies were held after the attack on Matthias Ecke.
When a video recently went viral, showing young people on the German holiday island of Sylt chanting Nazi slogans such as “Foreigners out” and “Germany for the Germans” to the tune of Gigi d’Agostini’s hit song, L’Amour toujours, there was a nationwide wave of outrage.
The fact that there is this broad public resistance to the far-right is important, especially in Germany. Far-right positions must not be allowed to strengthen further, or to become mainstream again. It is essential that the political firewall formed by the democratic forces in Germany remains intact. For this reason, the European elections will be an important barometer of public opinion in Germany.
It is unclear, however, how much influence the AfD will have in the European Parliament itself, since it was expelled from the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group on 23 May following an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which Maximilian Krah trivialised the Nazi SS.
This expulsion is mostly symbolic for now, since the European Parliament will not reconvene until after the elections, and the political groups will re-form themselves at that point. Nevertheless, it shows that it is by no means certain that the far-right forces from the various Member States will form a unified front in the new European Parliament. Even if their influence will probably increase after these elections, a strong alliance between the democratic forces of the political centre will be able to counter the power of the right in Europe.
This article is part of the Voices of Europe 2024 collaborative project, involving 27 media outlets from all over the EU and coordinated by Voxeurop.
