The Magdeburg Christmas market attack — and the heated political atmosphere that took hold in Germany as a result — have stressed how central the issues of domestic security and extremism will be for the next German government.
But other issues remain important as well. How can a government combat abnormal immigration and at the same time promote skilled immigration? And how can you protect yourself against cyber attacks, defend the rule of law and democracy against internal and external enemies? These are some of the main demanding situations that the next German government will face in 2025, regardless of the party that governs the country.
And yet, if you ask some members of the Bundestag, all those demanding situations will first have to be put aside to deal with the crisis facing the country’s economy. Large German corporations like Volkswagen are in big trouble, other people are worried about their jobs and facing rising costs and rents.
Marco Wanderwitz, of the centre-right Christian Democratic Party (CDU), was federal commissioner for the eastern states until 2021 and told DW: “The biggest challenge we have in this country at the moment is that our economy is stagnating. It affects the foundations and to the future. The great challenge is that we have a loss of confidence in politics among economic leaders.
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The government is blamed for high energy prices, high salary levels, deteriorating infrastructure, a shortage of professionals and excess bureaucracy.
According to Omid Nouripour, former leader of the Green Party, this last point is highlighted by the slow pace of digitalization in the country.
“We are facing a double crisis, the economic and the structural,” he told DW. “This can be seen, for example, in government offices, where faxes are still a primary means of communication. And this can be seen in the delay in investments in this country. “
These disruptions are exacerbated by external cyberattacks, most of which originate in Russia, against infrastructure such as the country’s power grids. “The most important thing is critical infrastructure,” Nouripour said. “We have too many vulnerabilities in this area. ” “Too many actors are putting pressure on critical infrastructure. ”
This is why strengthening the police and intelligence services is an important task for the coming year.
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Two other issues that have long been identified as problems will pose a far greater challenge for a future government than they have so far: Immigration and the question of how the country should deal with the apparent rise of populism and far-right extremism. The Christmas market attack in Magdeburg highlighted this problem.
Both the number of asylum programmes and the estimated number of abnormal migrants have declined in recent years, although the European border protection company Frontex estimates that around 166,000 people tried to enter the EU abnormally in the first nine months of 2024.
Germany has reintroduced controls at all its borders and the conservative CDU, which has a chance of leading the next government after the February elections, has now come out in favour of returning refugees to the borders.
Many local governments claim to have reached the limit in terms of welcoming and caring for refugees. Stefan Seidler, of the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband (SSW), a party that represents the Frisian and Danish minority in the north of the country, claims to have witnessed this.
“What I can say, from my point of view, is that municipalities are recently faced with an enormous task that they can hardly accomplish,” he told DW. “What they want is from the federal government. “
Wanderwitz, who is not running for the Bundestag, disagrees. He believes immigration is manageable, though he knows how polarizing the factor is. “The numbers have gone down,” he said, and he believes the disorders have decreased. “In fact, I only know local politicians who say that this is much less serious than in 2014 or 2015. But despite that, everyone raised the white flag,” Wanderwitz said.
Nouripur believes that the number of refugees heading to Germany could increase again. “We know that the situation in Ukraine can lead to more refugees, and we can see a confrontation or escalation in the Middle East,” he warned. .
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Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to win the February election.
“We are under great pressure lately from the far right,” warned Seidler. He is involved in safeguarding minority rights. “Lately we are seeing an increase in those who think that it is the majority that decides. But as a minority politician, I can only say it clearly and unequivocally: an intelligent democracy also shows respect for its minorities. “
This is part of the reason why Seidler supported a motion tabled in the Bundestag by the opposition CDU/CSU bloc, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens currently forming a minority government and their former coalition partner, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) to protect the independence of the Federal Constitutional Court against political interference. The reform raises the bar to alter the rules of the court, one thing that could be agreed on by the required two-thirds majority in the German parliament — even at a time of fierce election campaigning.
All political leaders agree that 2025 will be another complicated year, marked by violent conflicts and crises to be resolved.
This article was originally written in German.
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