One Year of Merz: Coalition Wobbles, AfD Hits 28% in Polls

Friedrich Merz took office as German Chancellor on 6 May 2025, vowing to revive the political centre, modernise the country's economy, and stabilise its place in a more contested Europe. One year on, his coalition is fraying, his polling has slipped, and the far-right AfD has continued the climb that began under his predecessor.

The coalition arithmetic

Merz governs at the head of a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition agreed on 9 April 2025. The cabinet has 10 ministers from CDU/CSU and 7 from the SPD, with the Vice Chancellor nominated by the SPD. The arrangement is the German political establishment's traditional response to a fragmented Bundestag — and is showing the same strains it has shown in past Grand Coalitions.

Merz has publicly told his own party he will not consider a minority government tolerated by AfD support. The position is principled but politically constraining: it means the SPD's leverage inside the coalition is significant, and that any meaningful break in the partnership produces a parliamentary impasse rather than an obvious alternative government.

The AfD trajectory

The AfD took 20.8% at the 2025 federal election, an already-historic result. It has since climbed to roughly 28% in 2026 polling. The pattern combines disaffection with the governing parties, persistent salience of immigration politics, and the AfD's improved electoral discipline since its previous internal crises.

Merz's options are narrow. The Brandmauer (firewall) policy — that no CDU/CSU government will cooperate with AfD — remains in place but is being tested at state level, where local CDU figures occasionally vote with AfD on specific motions. Each such episode produces a federal political crisis without changing the underlying dynamics.

The economy

Germany's economic performance under Merz has been mixed. Growth has been weak, manufacturing exports remain under tariff pressure from the Trump administration, and the country's traditional export-led model is structurally challenged in ways the coalition agreement has not yet fully addressed. Energy prices, defence-spending commitments, and the cost of decarbonisation all weigh on the budget.

Merz has warned of further coalition conflict and has demanded greater willingness to compromise from the SPD. The SPD's response, perfectly understandably, has been to insist on its own coalition priorities. The friction is structural, not personal.

The international file

Merz has been more comfortable on foreign policy than domestic politics. Germany's defence-spending trajectory now exceeds the NATO 2% target. The country has been a leading contributor to the Coalition of the Willing on Ukraine. The decision by Trump to withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany on 1 May 2026 was a setback Merz absorbed with disciplined restraint.

What 2026 will test

Three things. First, whether the coalition holds through the year. Second, whether the AfD's polling surge translates into further state-level victories that constrain Merz's room to manoeuvre. Third, whether the German economy stabilises enough to take the pressure off the political coalition. None of those questions has an obvious answer; each compounds the others.