Alternative for Germany (AfD) may not have won the majority it sought in Saxony-Anhalt state elections on Sunday, but the far-right party took a major step toward power in a country whose post-war democracy was aimed at preventing a resurgence of right-wing extremism. The AfD’s victory, described as “historic” by co-leader Alice Weidel, showed that in Germany, as in other parts of Europe, the center is not as solid as it once was.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the AfD’s victory had shaken his conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party “to the core” and the “consequences” would reach far beyond the region.
“This is an election result and we cannot simply get away with it as if nothing happened,” he said Monday. “This is the most serious electoral defeat the CDU has experienced in years, even decades.”
On Sunday, the CDU not only narrowly lost support to the AfD, but also lost more than half of its 2021 vote altogether, with the AfD more than doubling its share in the former East German state to 44% in one election cycle.
The AfD is already the largest opposition party in Berlin’s Bundestag, making it difficult to maintain its “eastern exception” claim that it is a regional post-communist phenomenon. As the AFD’s popularity grew, the CDU’s rhetoric on immigration moved further to the right. And with each victory at the state level, the “Brandmauer” or “firewall against the far right” that prevents ultranationalist parties like the AfD from joining the ruling coalition is tested a little bit not only by principle but also by parliamentary arithmetic. The question here is how long we can have a democratic debate to justify firewalls.
Similar problems are faced across Europe. In Brussels, the European Union’s own version of the far-right firewall, the so-called “cordon,” is also under pressure from mathematics.
The three far-right groups collectively hold 196 seats in the European Parliament, representing political parties in more than a dozen member states. Although the three rarely vote as a bloc, together they represent the second-largest force in parliament by number of seats. Although they remain insulated from the EU’s top jobs, they are already reshaping the organization’s debates on migration, aid to Ukraine and the Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality.
At the national level, far-right parties currently lead coalition governments in Italy and the Czech Republic, and serve as junior government partners in Finland, Croatia, Slovakia, and Sweden. And where the far right is out of power, it still sets the terms of debate. The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) topped Austria’s 2024 national vote, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) is one of the strongest forces in the Dutch parliament despite the collapse of its coalition last year, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has long been France’s most popular party. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spent four years proving that a party with post-fascist roots can govern from the centre-right without disrupting financial markets.
Hungary’s general election in April showed that the far-right’s rise is not purely linear. Peter Magyar’s centre-right Tisa party ousted Viktor Orbán’s illiberal Fidesz party in a landslide, ending 16 years of authoritarian rule and proving that entrenched incumbents can still lose.
But the far right doesn’t need to win everywhere, anytime. It has already changed what mainstream European parties have to fight and campaign against.
The historical mainstream now also faces increasing pressure from abroad. They come not only from Moscow, but also from Washington and MAGA. Elon Musk endorsed the AfD ahead of last year’s federal election, appearing at a campaign rally and vowing to “save the future of civilization”. US Vice President J.D. Vance used his speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference to directly attack Germany’s far-right firewall and met with Weidel days before the vote.
One senior German politician at the time said Vance’s support was “a huge boost for the far right in Germany and Europe.” AfD officials are campaigning on the idea of building good relations with both the White House and the Kremlin, as Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, did in the run-up to Sunday’s vote.
None of this distracts from the very domestic popularity of far-right parties in Europe, which is rooted in domestic grievances over immigration, stagnant wages, deindustrialization, and the failure of mainstream parties to address those grievances. But this means that Europe’s far right is not simply rising in isolation. Rather, it is actively strengthened by external forces, which have their own ideological and geopolitical reasons and wish to see the collapse of Europe’s postwar centre.
The question now is how unstoppable the rise of the far right in Europe really is. The answer should become clearer over the next 18 months as France moves towards the 2027 presidential election. Opinion polls currently show far-right leader Le Pen as the frontrunner.
In the short term, voters in Berlin and Mecklenburg in northeastern Germany will head to the polls within two weeks. These local elections could indicate whether Sunday’s results in Saxony-Anhalt mark the high end of the rise of the far right in Europe, or simply its latest low end.
