In the EU's largest country,
Germany, the European elections are marked by a far-right
weakened by a series of scandals linked to its xenophobic and
anti-Western tendencies and by internal frictions within German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's left-of-center coalition that are
favoring the Christian Democratic opposition.
Despite almost no economic growth, Germany still produces a
quarter of the EU's GDP and will send the most (96) of its 705
MEPs to Strasbourg and Brussels. And despite the Nazi past that
almost 80 years after the end of the Third Reich still
impregnates German political and institutional sensibilities, a
party as partly officially far-right as the Alternative for
Germany (AFD) manages to gather broad support: after 11 percent
achieved in the previous European elections in 2019 and in the
2021 general election, polls by major demographic institutes
give it between a 23 percent detected last summer and a 15
percent last month.
Also without a single leading candidate is the HDU, the
Christian Democratic party's main opposition force: leader
Friedrich Merz is launching one for each region but has the pull
of the European Commission chairwoman, Germany's Ursula von der
Leyen, the number one candidate of the entire European People's
Party (EPP) aiming for an encore at the helm of the EU
executive. The party, along with its Bavarian right-wing (CSU)
electorally led by EPP group leader Manfred Weber, has been
credited for weeks with 30 percent, virtually doubling the
expected result for Scholz's Social Democratic party. The
chancellor is fielding a former family minister, MEP Katarina
Barley. The Greens, credited with 14 percent, are presenting
Terry Reintke, who is little known in Germany despite being the
leading co-candidate of ecologists at the European level. In
contrast, the other governing party, the Liberals (FDP, 4
percent), is betting on pro-Ukrainian Marie-Agnes
Strack-Zimmermann, a reference point of the Alde (Alliance of
European Liberals and Democrats).
The left-wing opposition has leading co-candidates with ties
to Italy: the newly formed 'BSW' of Sarah Wagenknecht (6
percent) has German-Italian Fabio De Masi, while the Linke (4
percent) is supporting Carola Rackete, the migrant sea captain
who forced the blockade on Lampedusa in 2019.
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