German Elections: What Merz's '5 Minutes to Midnight' Warning Means for Europe

A day after winning the elections on 23 February, the chancellor presumptive of Germany, Friedrich Merz, declared a warning: “It is five minutes to midnight for Europe”.He was speaking about defence. He said it was uncertain “whether we will still be talking about NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] in its current form” at the next summit in June — “or whether we will have to establish a European defence capability much more quickly.”He made his stance against US President Donald Trump’s current administration very clear when he said, “After [President] Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” while calling for strengthening “Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”. His statement comes at a time when Europe and the US seem to be locking horns.Whose President Is He Anyway? Hints From Donald Trump's Oath-Taking CeremonyDespite his bold rhetoric, Merz remains weak in Germany. His Christian Democrats — the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), and its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) — topped the poll with 28.5 percent votes. He has confirmed that he will seek a coalition with the outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) which has won only 16.4 percent of the votes after having won the last election. A centre-right and centre-left coalition is the most credible coalition partnership for Merz.With a slight vote percentage change, Merz would have needed a third coalition partner, most likely the Greens which would have a greater risk of early government collapse.While the current expected coalition has come as a sigh of relief in Europe, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is closing in at the heels with a record result, coming second with a 20.8 percent vote share.All mainstream parties have ruled out any sort of deal with the far-right, but if the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition fails to manage the economic and migration challenges, this election could prove to be an opportunity for AfD at the next elections — a party that saw blatant US interference in the elections with the likes of its right-wing cabal, including Elon Musk.Katja Hoyer, historian and author of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990, writes in The Guardian that being the primary opposition party, the AfD "won’t have to dirty its hands with messy election results and compromise politics" nor does it have to "find answers to complicated questions." "If there are clear winners of Germany’s 2025 election, it’s the political fringes.”Katja HoyerThe one thing this election shed a light on is that Germany still remains disunited, with the difference in results between East and West Germany. In the east, the AfD came first in all five states (excluding Berlin, which is a mix of east and west). In the west, with some exceptions, the CDU/CSU was dominant. But it remains a critical player in European unity.The current Bundestag results may bring temporary relief amid the sharp rise of the far right in Europe, but the rise of the far-right in the purported land of ‘Never Again’ shows how the coming months and years will shape Europe. It is a worry for Brussels and Germany’s partners in Europe.Germany Elections Explained: Their Unique Voting System, Likely Winners & More Significantly, the far-right and far-left have had the biggest combined vote share in over two decades. The 18 percent increase among the 16-35-year-old demographic’s move to the right shows a clear sign of the youth’s (more men than women) disenchantment with issues like the economy and migration.The rise of the AfD in Germany reflects similar sentiments across Europe – that of protectionism.It played on issues like greater immigration controls, returning to nuclear energy, leaving NATO, and abandoning the euro. However, as of now it will depend how the coalition takes its country forward and whether it can show a fresh direction to Europe being the centre of Europe, its trade networks and still an economic powerhouse. However, the recent US stand-off with Europe is bringing even far-right parties closer to the centre-right and centre-left on the issue of Europe’s security. Can fresh security concerns put a brake on the rapid rise of the far-right in Europe?All the parties are aware of the tremendous pressure from other European countries for Germany to get its act together in the context of the recent Trump remarks and exclusion of Europe, including Ukraine, in its talks with Russia. The consensus among European countries to support Ukraine has been growing since Trump’s recent actions. The UK announced this week that it will increase its defence expenditure from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent.Merz has clearly marked his conservative alliance’s victory in German elections by urging Europe to make itself more independent from the US. He also warned that “America First” does not have to mean “America alone", warning that if the US-EU relationship gets worse, “it will not only be to the detriment of Europe, but it will also be to the detriment of America.”Mariam Lau, a political journalist with Die Zeit, argues: “Merz, a staunch transatlanticist and pro-European, sees Germany at the forefront of the worldwide clash between democracies and authoritarians," as quoted by The Guardian. "It was a shock for him and his party to see how Elon Musk, the US President’s right-hand man and owner of the platform X, blatantly interfered with the elections in favour of the AfD, a party with many anti-American instincts. Merz openly vented his anger and annoyance at JD Vance’s Munich intervention in the same vein... It is this – the palpable and existential difference between conservatism and authoritarianism – that will mark his reign, one way or the other.”All of Merz’s recent rhetoric is bound to receive support from French President Emmanuel Macron but it will depend on whether Merz can build a Bundestag majority to lift the so-called debt brake that slows increases in defence spending. This fundamental reform would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers of parliament, and if extra funds were only for defence, it is possible the Left and the AfD would combine to defeat it.One possibility for the CDU/CSU alliance leader Merz is to claim that the country is in an emergency, to try to force the change through the Bundestag before its dissolution. Will it happen? We have to wait until Easter when the new coalition and Merz take charge.Turbulent times, in the country and across the continent, may well be ahead.(Nabanita Sircar is a senior journalist based in London. She tweets at @sircarnabanita. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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German Elections See Rise of Far-Right and Far-Left: What It Means for Europe

The conservatives may have won in Germany but the far-right and far-left were the top gainers.

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