{"id":422447,"date":"2025-03-25T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T12:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/25\/germania-nuovo-bundestag-21-legislatura\/"},"modified":"2025-03-25T15:38:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T14:38:55","slug":"new-bundestag-officially-takes-office-in-berlin-with-ultra-right-and-left-likely-to-block-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/25\/new-bundestag-officially-takes-office-in-berlin-with-ultra-right-and-left-likely-to-block-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"New Bundestag officially takes office in Berlin, with ultra-right and left likely to block reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The new legislature officially kicks off in Germany, where the post-Nazi ultra-right AfD has doubled its seats<\/strong> and, together with the radical left, holds a bloc minority<\/strong> that may stand in the way of new constitutional reforms (such as the one on the debt brake just approved by the outgoing parliament). Meanwhile, the first phase of negotiations to form the new government<\/strong> has concluded, but the hard part for incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/strong> <\/i>begins now.<\/p>\n

The Math in Parliament<\/h3>\n

The 21st term of the Bundestag<\/i><\/strong>, the lower House of the German legislature, officially began this morning (March 25). According to the February 23\u00a0results of the early elections<\/a>, the largest group in the hemicycle is the conservative Union<\/i> (CDU\/CSU)<\/strong>, which has 208 seats<\/strong> out of the 630 total<\/strong> (the latter figure\u00a0is the ceiling introduced with the 2023 electoral reform, while the 20th legislature closed with 733 members<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The real news, however, is that the pro-Russian, anti-migrant far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/i> (AfD)<\/strong> of Alice Weidel<\/strong> and Tino Chrupalla<\/strong>\u00a0surpassed\u00a0the Social Democrats of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD)<\/strong> and has become the second-largest force in the House, <\/strong>taking the role of\u00a0leader of the opposition<\/strong>, having gained 152 elected.<\/strong>\u00a0At the same time, the Socialists plummeted to 120 deputies<\/strong>, dropping from first to third place.<\/div>\n
\n

With the radical, anti-NATO left of Die Linke<\/i><\/strong>, which has grown to 64 seats<\/strong>, the AfD can now form a minority bloc<\/strong> to prevent further amendments to the Constitution<\/strong>, which require two-thirds votes in the House. Precisely\u00a0to avoid these Caudine Forks, the leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz,<\/strong> forced the parliamentary process<\/a> by having the deputies of the outgoing legislature vote on the historic debt brake reform<\/strong> (Schuldenbremse<\/em>) on March 18.\u00a0The Senate (Bundesrat) then finally approved it on March 21, paving the way for adopting a new \u20ac3 billion aid package for Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Weidel<\/a>
The co-presidents of Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland, Alice Weidel and\u00a0Tino Chrupalla (photo: Tobias Schwarz\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for the composition\u00a0of the new Bundestag<\/i>, the youngest MP is 23-year-old Luke Hoss<\/strong> (Linke<\/i>), while the oldest is 84-year-old Alexander Gauland<\/strong> (AfD). Women make up\u00a032.4 percent<\/strong> of the total (over\u00a0two\u00a0percentage points less than in 2021) but are not evenly distributed, ranging from 11.8 percent of the AfD to 61.2 percent of the Gr\u00fcnen<\/i>. Of the 630 members of the hemicycle, 400 are familiar faces and 230 first-timers.<\/p>\n

Negotiations underway for the government<\/h3>\n

In the meantime, the negotiations to\u00a0form\u00a0the next executive<\/strong> — a “grand coalition” between conservatives and social democrats (328 seats out of 630) — have just entered the crucial phase. Just yesterday, the future Bundeskanzler<\/i> announced\u00a0the closing of the first phase<\/a>, but now the real tug-of-war<\/strong> with the SPD partners begins.<\/p>\n

According to some observers, the CDU leader has\u00a0deprived himself of a very powerful bargaining chip<\/strong>, namely the\u00a0federal budget reform. Now that they have achieved this victory relatively easily, the Socialists seem to have little incentive\u00a0incentives to cooperate with the Christian Democrats<\/strong> on crucial (but controversial) dossiers such as migration<\/strong>, taxes,<\/strong> and welfare policies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This situation, analysts argue, strengthens the negotiating position of the SPD<\/strong>, which, despite coming out of the polls defeated, represents the only possible ally for the Union<\/i>. The Social Democrats are generally opposed to tightening\u00a0asylum policies.<\/strong>\u00a0In contrast, Merz has\u00a0broadly announced a crackdown\u00a0with a program – on which he may get the support from\u00a0the AfD<\/strong>, a party\u00a0he has\u00a0shown no disdain<\/a>\u00a0in aligning with – that includes closing borders<\/strong>, the use of pushbacks,<\/strong> and the end of family reunifications<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Friedrich<\/a>
CDU leader Friedrich Merz (foto: Ina Fassbender\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, pressure is growing (even from within the party itself) on the Social Democrats not to get in the way<\/strong> of negotiations, prolonging political instability in Berlin. The leader of the CDU has said that “confidence is growing”<\/strong> among the negotiating teams. As he signaled in the aftermath of the elections, he expressed confidence in closing the coalition agreement by Easter <\/strong>on\u00a0April 20. However, there is no assurance he will meet the deadline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany’s 21st parliamentary term, which emerged from last month’s early elections, sees an unprecedented strengthening of the eurosceptics and pro-Kremlin AfD (but also the radical anti-NATO left). Negotiations continue between Christian Democrats and Socialists to give Germany a government as soon as possible<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":422441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26580,26267,30559,26473,29635,27786],"class_list":["post-422447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-bundestag-en","tag-cdu-csu-en","tag-friedrich-merz-en","tag-spd-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422447"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422474,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422447\/revisions\/422474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}