Die Linke is back

The consequences of the left's surprise success for defence and security

We’re delighted to welcome back Dr. Ulrike Franke as this month’s guest poster. Ulrike wrote for us back in early 2023 on how Germany was responding to the challenge of the war in Ukraine. In this post she takes a look at the results of Sunday’s German election and the challenge of increasing defence spending following the shift in US policy towards Europe.

Ulrike is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She works on German and European defence policy, and the role of new technology in warfare and has published widely on these and other topics, in, among others, Die Zeit, FAZ, RUSI Whitehall Papers, Comparative Strategy, War on the Rocks, Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik.

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Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz

The results from the German election are in. The winner is Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats, although with the second-worst result in the party’s history: 28.5%. Politically, there is only one two-party coalition possible, the alliance formerly known as the “grand coalition”, i.e. a coalition of the conservatives and the social democrats (SPD) who secured just 16.4% of the vote.

Together, they have 328 seats in the Bundestag, 12 more than needed for a majority, an acceptable, though not great margin. Hence, a CDU-led government with a Chancellor Merz and the SPD as the smaller coalition partner seems almost guaranteed, despite rumblings within the SPD. This, to be clear, is not a coalition formed out of enthusiasm or political compatibility, but mainly a lack of alternatives.

Most international observers have, beyond the question of who will form the government, focused on the other obvious winner of these elections: the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) which secured a whopping 20.8% of the votes, coming in second. It gained over 10 percentage points compared to three years ago, and in some constituencies in East Germany, got over 40% of the votes. AfD is entering the parliament with 152 MPs. (Mathematically, a CDU/CSU coalition with the AfD is also possible, this option has however been categorically excluded by Merz who referred to the so-called “firewall” towards the far-right, which has gained some international notoriety after having been criticized recently by US- Vice President J.D. Vance.)

For security and defence policy experts, however, another party may be the focus: Die Linke. Like the AfD and CDU/CSU it also succeeded in gaining votes, with 8.7% and 64 MPs. These numbers would normally not make them a relevant force, and, historically speaking, this is not a particularly good result for them. It is, however, considerably better than anyone would have predicted only weeks ago when it seemed all but guaranteed that the party would not make it over the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Die Linke gained substantial momentum and thus reentered parliament triumphantly while the “Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht” (BSW), a populist left-authoritarian party which had split from Die Linke in 2024 appears to have missed out on entering parliament by 0,03 percentage points.

Why do observers, especially those working on defence questions, need to be interested in this smallest of all Bundestag factions, a party which has never been in government, and stands for left-wing ideas which do not have a majority in Germany? The answer is money. More specifically, Germany’s notorious “Schuldenbremse” or debt break, created in 2009 to restrict deficits.

The government at the time – another grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD – introduced a law into Germany’s constitution stating that annual structural deficits are restricted to 0.35% of GDP. Because of this rule, German governments’ ability to borrow money to finance anything has been severely limited – which in turn explains why German debt is lower than its European partners.

The world of 2025, however, looks different to the one of 2009. Even in Germany, a country known for its disinterest in defence matters, the population and political realm has noticed things have changed. The Zeitenwende, the turn in times, which Olaf Scholz announced three days after the Russian invasion may not have had quite as important impact on German defence capabilities as some had hoped, but certainly helped Germans to wake up from its decades-long geopolitical slumber. The recent statements by the Trump administration have perhaps had even more impact.

There is thus a realisation in most of German society, as well as in the new government, that the country will need to make a real effort to re-build its defence capabilities, possibly re-start conscription, and generally be able to put itself into a better position to guarantee its own and Europe’s security without the United States. This, however, requires money. Germany has more financial leeway than most of its European partners, but the government still needs to decide where any new money for defence would come from.

As SPD does not want to cut other spending and CDU does not want to raise taxes, the only option is to borrow more. This, however, would mean an end to the debt brake, or the need for a new “special fund”, like the recent 100 billion Euro fund for the Bundeswehr. Both CDU and SPD have been careful in the campaign to not be too clearly in favour of abandoning the debt brake, but it seems likely that there will be a majority in this government to do so. The problem is that an end to the debt brake, as well as a special fund, requires a 2/3 majority in the Bundestag – and so needs support from the Greens (which most likely will be on board), as well as either AfD or Die Linke.

Relying on AfD votes is a major scandal in Germany; therefore, all eyes now turn to the left and a party which is against defence spending as a matter of course, criticises NATO, and wants to end all foreign Bundeswehr missions. Whether and how this party can be convinced, most likely through substantial increases in social or infrastructure spending, to agree to abolishing the debt brake to fund more German defence, is the big question that could decide Germany’s defence policy and abilities going forward.

It will be a difficult negotiation. On the goal of building up German defence capabilities, the parties could not be further apart. Pacifism and anti-military sentiment is in Die Linke’s DNA. The party notes on its website “We reject more money for rearmament. We want to transform the Bundeswehr into a purely defensive army.” In a public debate I recently had with a Linke MP candidate, it was explained to me this would mean only having “defensive weapons”, and that no German frigate, for example, would need to be able to go further out than 200km.

Also, ideologically, CDU/CSU and Die Linke are incompatible. For many years, CDU/CSU has had an “Unvereinbarkeitsentschluss”, a ‘decision of incommensurateness’ regarding Die Linke, which excludes any coalition “and similar forms of cooperation”. At the same time, Die Linke representatives have already signalled a willingness to end the debt brake – but not for increased defence spending only spending on infrastructure and other investment. It will thus require a skilful negotiator to make this work. Whether Merz can play this role, or whether SPD can act as a bridge, is uncertain.

In order to avoid this scenario, a rather unusual discussion is taking place in Berlin right now: could – should Friedrich Merz try to get the votes for the 2/3 majority in the old parliament? Due to the German electoral system, the old parliament is still in place. So there is a short period of time – four weeks until 24 March – in which the likely new chancellor could try and the get the votes from his likely new coalition partner and the Greens, but in the old parliament, with the old majorities.

Merz has announced that he wants to move fast in general – the idea is to have a new government coalition by Easter – and on defence and security the urgency is clear to most. Still, going for a constitutional change with a parliament that no longer reflects the elected majorities is a bold move in a political system which rarely sees those. The SPD have already expressed concerns.

If this gambit does not work, and if Die Linke blocks a higher defence budget in the new Bundestag, Merz’s government will struggle to find an alternative solution. Working with the AfD, and on such a fundamental question, seems unthinkable now, though German politics is in such choppy waters at the moment that many old certainties are being questioned. In the worst case, the new government will need to find money elsewhere, endangering public cohesion and voter satisfaction through spending cuts or raised taxes. Neither will be popular.

Ironically, the attacks by the Trump administration on the fundamental values of the transatlantic relationship, and their clear signalling that Europe can no longer rely on the US for its defence, could help this endeavour. Die Linke has always been critical of the US, following an “anti-imperialist” logic. On the evening of the election, Friedrich Merz – a staunch transatlanticist and head of a party which in its programme, even after the election of Donald Trump, identified the cooperation with the US as plan A for Germany – noted:

“I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

He added:

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

This statement might have been made under the shock of recent developments, and Merz will certainly, in parallel to any European efforts, aim to have workable relations to the US. Still, it is testimony to a genuine change in German thinking that has taken hold rapidly over the last weeks, moving even the most die-hard transatlanticists. Efforts to become more independent from the US is something on which Die Linke and the new government might be able to find common ground on. Continuous bad news from Washington could eventually be good news for German defence funding.