Parties

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Economy: lower business taxation toward a maximum 25%, remove the remaining solidarity surcharge, reduce bureaucracy and make overtime supplements tax-free.[6]
• Welfare: replace Bürgergeld with a stricter “Neue Grundsicherung” based more strongly on “Fördern und Fordern”.[6]
• Migration: more border controls and rejections, faster returns, third-country asylum approaches, suspension of family reunification for subsidiary protection.[6]
• Energy & climate: cheaper electricity, renewables and grids, emissions trading and “technology openness”; repeal/replace the previous heating-law approach and keep nuclear technology as an option.[6]
• Security: higher defence capacity, growing conscription model, continued support for Ukraine including weapons.[6]

In one sentence: the CDU wants to move Germany toward a more market-oriented, security-focused and migration-restrictive version of the post-war social-market model rather than toward a smaller welfare state altogether.[7]

The CDU is unusually geographically broad. bpb notes its durable strength among older voters and practising Christians; its historic roots are particularly strong in many western/southern and rural or Christian-democratic regions. It won 29.7% in Baden-Württemberg and 31.0% in Rhineland-Palatinate state elections in March 2026.[8]

Today: Friedrich Merz is Chancellor. CDU, CSU and SPD form the federal government. CDU/CSU together hold 208 Bundestag seats.[2][3]

Party says · 2025 manifesto

Its entire electoral base is Bavaria. bpb identifies especially strong areas in Old Bavaria, Swabia and Catholic parts of Franconia. The CSU has governed Bavaria continuously since 1957; Markus Söder is party chair and Bavarian Minister-President.[9]

Today: federal governing partner alongside CDU and SPD, while also controlling the Bavarian state government.

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Investment: a “Deutschlandfonds” beginning at €100bn for housing, grids, charging and other infrastructure; reform debt rules to enable more investment.[10]
• Work & distribution: €15 minimum wage goal, tax relief for lower/middle incomes, higher taxation of the richest 5% including a wealth-tax approach.[10]
• Housing & pensions: stronger/longer rent controls and no higher retirement age.[10]
• Migration: stronger EU external-border control and deportation of offenders, but rejects offshoring asylum procedures and supports family reunification.[10]
• Foreign policy: strong EU/NATO orientation and continued support for Ukraine, while stressing diplomacy and avoiding direct NATO–Russia escalation.[10]

In one sentence: the SPD wants a more investment-heavy and redistributive social-market economy in which the state actively protects industrial jobs and household security.[11]

Historically rooted in the labour movement, the SPD remains strongest in parts of the old West, particularly industrial regions of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as a number of northern city-states and Länder. bpb cites Protestant areas of the old Federal Republic and Catholic industrial NRW as classic strongholds.[12]

Today: junior partner in the Merz coalition. Lars Klingbeil is Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor; Bärbel Bas is also a federal minister as well as co-chair.[35]

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Economy: a Germany Fund for infrastructure and industrial transformation; modernise the debt brake to permit more future investment.[13]
• Climate: accelerate renewables and electrification; 100% climate-neutral electricity by 2035; social compensation such as climate money.[13]
• Housing & mobility: stronger rent brake and a permanent affordable Deutschlandticket.[13]
• Migration: defend constitutional asylum and the Refugee Convention, preserve family reunification and ease labour-market access.[13]
• Foreign & defence: substantial military, humanitarian and financial support for Ukraine; defence spending clearly above 2% of GDP.[13]
• Society: equality, reproductive rights, anti-discrimination and liberal citizenship/inclusion policies.[13]

The Greens' central proposition is that ecological transformation is not separate from economic policy: they see green industrial investment as Germany's route to future competitiveness.[14]

Strongest in urban centres of western Germany, particularly university cities. bpb names places such as Freiburg, Stuttgart, Bonn, Darmstadt, Aachen and others; in the 2025 federal election their best constituency results included Freiburg and major-city districts.[15]

Today: 85-seat federal opposition. The party still participates in several western Land governments, but lost its federal ministries when the 2021–24/25 traffic-light era ended.[15]

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Migration: reject many asylum entrants at borders, leave the common EU asylum framework, abolish various residence rules and pursue “remigration” policies.[16]
• EU: return powers to nation states; the 2025 programme seeks a new “Bund europäischer Nationen” and a referendum-oriented return of monetary sovereignty; bpb describes an exit option as part of the party's strategy if the EU cannot be remade.[16]
• Economy & welfare: large tax cuts including ending the solidarity surcharge and inheritance tax; maintain the debt brake; stronger work obligations for long-term basic-income recipients; simultaneously expand some family/pension benefits.[16]
• Climate & energy: rejects Germany's current decarbonisation path, abolish CO₂ levies, return to nuclear power, retain/revive fossil generation and resist wind expansion.[16]
• Russia & Ukraine: end sanctions and restore economic/energy relations with Russia; sharply different from the current government's Ukraine policy.[16]
• Society: nationalist-conservative conception of identity and a stronger preference for traditional family roles.[16]

In one sentence: the AfD aims at a much more nationally sovereign, migration-restrictive and culturally conservative Germany, with a fundamental break from the current EU, climate and Russia-policy consensus.[17][18]

The party's support is substantially stronger in eastern Germany: bpb says its eastern voter potential is more than twice its western level. Its voters are disproportionately male and concentrated in middle age groups. Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt have been central strongholds; today's Saxony-Anhalt election deepened that pattern.[19][43]

Legal/intelligence-service context: do not conflate state and federal classifications. The federal party is currently again treated as a Verdachtsfall (suspected case) after the Cologne Administrative Court blocked the BfV's higher “confirmed” classification pending the main proceedings. Several state associations retain confirmed right-extremist classifications.[20]

Today: largest federal opposition party by seats and first in the latest ARD national poll; no settled federal or Land government headed by the AfD at the time this snapshot was compiled.

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Distribution: wealth/millionaire taxes, tougher inheritance taxation, substantial relief for low and middle incomes.[21]
• Work & welfare: minimum wage at least €15 and €16 by 2026 in the manifesto; a sanctions-free minimum-income system and higher minimum pensions.[21]
• Housing: federal rent cap, much more social housing and public ownership of very large housing portfolios.[21]
• Fiscal policy: abolish the debt brake and finance large public investment.[21]
• Migration: defend asylum rights, expand safe/legal routes, oppose externalisation and broad border closures.[21]
• Climate: faster, regulation-led transition with the cost concentrated on high emitters and the wealthy rather than low-income households.[21]
• Foreign policy: prioritise diplomacy, arms control and disarmament; drastically restrict the Bundeswehr's expeditionary role.[21]

The party explicitly identifies democratic socialism and structural change in ownership and economic power as its long-term project, not merely a larger welfare state.[22]

It remains stronger in eastern Germany and Berlin, but its 2025 comeback broadened westward and was especially strong among younger voters. In 2025 its best constituencies were in Berlin; bpb notes that although the East still overperforms, most of its voters now live in the West simply because of population size.[23]

Today: 64-seat federal opposition; its new 2026–28 chairs are Ines Schwerdtner and Luigi Pantisano. Historically it led Thuringia under Bodo Ramelow (2014–24) and has also participated in Land coalitions.[38]

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Economy: broad tax and contribution cuts, fewer subsidies, deregulation and stronger private investment.[24]
• Budget: strict adherence to the constitutional debt brake and opposition to a European debt union.[24]
• State: major administrative digitalisation and federalism reform; fewer government commissioners and leaner bureaucracy.[24]
• Climate: technology-neutral decarbonisation using markets, renewables, hydrogen and synthetic fuels rather than detailed bans.[24]
• Migration: easier qualified labour migration but tougher enforcement and reduced benefits for rejected asylum seekers.[24]
• Ukraine: expansive support, including weapons; stronger German and European defence.[24]
• Society: strong individual rights and self-determination; socially liberal on many civil-rights questions.[24]

The FDP's core distinction is that it treats economic freedom, fiscal restraint and individual autonomy as mutually reinforcing — and tends to resist state-directed industrial or social policy.[25]

Its electorate overrepresents self-employed people, professionals, managers and civil servants. Geographic strength is concentrated in prosperous regions around the Rhine and the Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Munich areas; bpb identifies Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein as its best 2021/2025 federal-election Länder.[26]

Today: outside the Bundestag after falling below 5% in 2025. Its state presence has also contracted sharply. The outgoing Saxony-Anhalt coalition had been its last Land-government participation before today's election; the new government there is not yet formed.

Party says · 2025 manifesto

• Economy: more state investment and industrial protection, action against dominant corporations, opposition to privatisation in health/housing and lower energy costs.[27]
• Work & welfare: €15 minimum wage, stronger pensions and more redistribution, including higher taxation of large wealth.[27]
• Housing: national rent cap and stronger non-profit/public housing.[27]
• Climate & energy: climate policy subordinate to affordability/industrial competitiveness; opposes several current transition measures and favours access to cheap fossil imports, including Russian energy.[27]
• Migration: sharply limit “uncontrolled migration”, stricter removals and no residence entitlement after arrival from safe third countries.[27]
• Ukraine / defence: rejects weapons deliveries to Ukraine and Israel and opposes higher defence spending; prioritises negotiations and a European security architecture including Russia.[27]
• Culture: self-identifies in 2026 as “social-conservative”: economically left, culturally more conservative, including on migration and the Self-Determination Act.[27]

BSW's unusual combination — left economics plus conservative cultural and Russia/peace positions — is its defining attempt to occupy space not cleanly described by a one-dimensional left–right scale.[29]

Its breakthrough base was eastern Germany: 2024 state-election successes in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony and a strong European-election result. It then missed the Bundestag by just 0.019 percentage points in 2025.[1][30]

Government footprint is changing rapidly: its Brandenburg coalition with the SPD was ended in January 2026 and replaced by SPD–CDU in March. In Thuringia, it entered government with CDU and SPD, but a major wave of party exits — including Deputy Minister-President Katja Wolf — erupted on 4 September 2026, so the practical meaning of “BSW government participation” is currently unstable.[31][32]

Identity change: the party decided to retain the acronym BSW while renaming itself “Bündnis Soziale Gerechtigkeit und Wirtschaftliche Vernunft” from 1 October 2026.[40]