It’s been one year since the German parliamentary snap elections of February 2025. Looking back, even though the elections were triggered by the collapse of the former government, the so-called “Traffic Light coalition” consisting of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the liberals (FDP), the election results did not lead to major changes in government. Germany went back to its usual “grand coalition” between the Christian Democrats (CDU/ CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD). However, the elections themselves did shake up the German political landscape, as almost all parties lost in voter shares except for the far-right AfD. Moreover, the election campaigns have been perceived as messy and controversial given the shortened time frame and hastened strategy-making. Hence, on the occasion of the one-year anniversary, this article looks back at what issues were most polarising during the campaigning based on the data from the Palumba Voting Advice Application (VAA) and what has happened to these topics since the election in early 2025.
As a start, let’s recall the election results. The parties with the highest election results in the second vote (“Zweitstimme” which determines the proportional representation of parties in parliament, rather than specific local candidates in the German electoral system) were the conservative CDU/CSU coalition with 28.6%, followed by the far-right AfD with 20.8% (Bundeswahlleiterin.de, 2025). In third place came the centre-left SPD with 16.4%, quite a decrease given that they appointed the former chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Greens reached 11.6% and the Left party 8.8%. The BSW, a newly formed splinter party from the Left which follows far-right and far-left positions and the liberal FDP received 4.9% and 4.3% respectively and thus did not meet the 5% threshold, a legal requirement to enter the Bundestag intended to prevent political fragmentation (Saalfeld, 2005). The FDP not entering parliament again illustrated the electoral punishment as they triggered the collapse of the former government and thus, enabled the conditions for snap elections.
As mentioned before, the current government in Germany is now a “grand coalition” between the SPD and CDU/CSU. Yet, this nickname has a bitter aftertaste, given that the two traditional parties of the political center (“Volksparteien”) do not represent a strong majority of the electorate anymore. The podcast of Germany’s leading news programme “Die Tagesschau” even posited that the new government is the “GroKo which no longer exists” (tagesschau.de, 2025). Instead, the CDU/CSU and the far-right AfD have become the party with the highest number of votes. Yet, among the youth, the vote distribution is notably different. The CDU/CSU and AfD are among the parties most voted among the youth. However, the party which gathered the biggest share of votes among the 18-24 year-olds is the Left Party with 25%, in comparison to the AfD only receiving 21% and CDU/CSU 13% (Bundeswahlleiterin.de, 2025). These divided electoral results among the youth electorate already points towards the strong polarisation within Generation Z (which has already been discussed in other Knowledge Lab articles).
This polarisation cannot only generally be found with young people but there are also specific issues which divide the society as a whole as seen within the data collected in the German Bundestagswahl version of the Palumba VAA. During the German federal election campaign, the most polarising topics in the Palumba data were the nuclear phaseout, the possibility of speed limit on German highways, Germany’s border control to its neighbouring countries, the potential ban of combustion engines and a nationwide rent cap.
To clarify, in this context, polarisation is measured through the degree of standard deviation: the higher the standard deviation, the more polarised the results were in the Palumba voting advice application.
In Germany, the process of nuclear phaseout had been started under the former chancellor Angela Merkel following the Fukushima disaster in March 2011 (Schreurs, 2012). The final legally mandated shutdown of the last three nuclear power plants (Isar 2, Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2) took place in April, 2023 under the last government. Since this shutdown three years ago, there’s been renewed discussion on whether Germany should follow the French example and rely on nuclear energy to achieve the energy transition. This debate has been exacerbated following two major events in 2022. First, the attack on the North Stream 2, a natural gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany and then the invasion of Ukraine led to Germany struggling with shortages. The rest of Europe faced similar problems given the boycott of Russian gas imports (Kocak, 2025; IEA, 2025). As a consequence, the CDU and CSU have repeatedly argued in favour of Germany returning to nuclear energy and Merz even called the phaseout a “grave, strategic mistake” (Gräber, 2026). However, the Social Democrats (SPD) continue to hold on to the phaseout as they warn about the uncertainties surrounding nuclear waste management. Ultimately, the two coalition partners agreed to let the topic rest as a reversal of the phaseout is not mentioned in their coalition agreement.
The topic of a potential speed limit has been polarising Germans for decades. Germany’s highways are famous for not having a speed limitation, making Germany the only EU member and industrialised country worldwide without. Currently, there is in most cases a recommended speed of 130 km/h on highways but no legal enforcement. It is often argued that unrestricted speeding is an essential part of German culture and arguments for a limit are often rejected as being part of a wider movement of prohibition culture (“Verbotskultur”). Proponents of a limit argue in favour of climate protection and traffic security but critics frequently claim that the effects of a speed limit would not be that consequential. In terms of party positions, the SPD, Left party and the Greens are all in favour of a speed limit while the CDU/CSU, AfD and FDP oppose it, often arguing in relation to culture and freedom (Wolfskämpf and Sambale, 2025). Again, this polarising topic is not mentioned in the current coalition agreement, in this case illustrating a success for the CDU/CSU who were able to enforce their standpoint of not including it in the legislature.
An issue not only affecting Germany but the whole EU: border control within the Schengen zone. Originally, Schengen has always meant that there was no border control within its borders but this has changed during and following the Covid-19 pandemic as 18 countries in total, including Germany, imposed border controls again (Sabbati et al, 2020). Following ongoing debate and several parties heavily addressing immigration in their election campaigns, the current government has repeatedly renewed border controls. This campaign also illustrates the rise of anti-immigration sentiments through the increased popularity of the far-right AfD, since the CDU/ CSU intended to take over voters from them by adopting a harsh stance on migration. The CSU Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, has only recently renewed the stationary checks at all land borders until September 2026 (Innern, 2026).
Banning combustion engines has also polarised the electorate quite strongly with a standard deviation of 1.73 (Palumba.org, 2025). This issue is related to the EU policy of banning combustion engines (petrol and diesel) by 2035 (European Parliament, 2022). The current German government, especially Chancellor Friedrich Merz, pushed to soften the EU ban, as there was strong protest and lobbying within Germany against the ban (Marsh and More, 2025). It was argued that softening the ban was necessary to secure jobs and support the struggling German automotive industry against Chinese competition. The German efforts were successful in their endeavours as the EU did a surprising U-turn on the ban: in December 2025, the European Commission (2025) moved from a 100% ban to a 90% CO2 reduction target. Furthermore, it newly included a “10% loophole” for internal combustion (ICE) vehicles using e-fuels or biofuels, thus effectively ending the absolute ban.
On the topic of a nationwide rent cap (“Mietpreisbremse”), there have been many arguments in favour and against but the current government has extended the rent cap until December 31, 2029, thus limiting rent on new lettings to 10% above the local reference rent (“Mietspiegel”) (Bundesregierung, 2025). Additionally, it announced several measures to introduce stricter enforcement, as they want to tighten regulations by setting higher fines (up to €50,000) for violations. Recently, there has been the announcement of a”Second Tenancy Law Amendment” to cap annual increases on index-linked rents, meaning rent increases tied to inflation, at 3.5% (Wiedemann, 2026). This measure was a major point of contention in the coalition given that there may be the risk of reduced property values and difficulties of financing new housing according to landlords. Contrastingly, tenants argue that the cap of 3.5% remains too high and hence ask for an entire ban of index-linked clauses (Kingston, 2026).
To conclude it is clear that while some topics have certainly been tackled by the Merz-led coalition government, albeit them facing strong electorate polarisation, others have been pushed to the site to avoid further tensions. It must be monitored how the government navigates existing polarisation in the future as only in the past year already, the coalition has undergone several governmental crises where the two coalition parties have pitted against each other publicly.
