What lessons can we learn from the German elections, beyond the feeling of ‘danger averted’?

A first fundamental lesson, in our opinion, was provided by the turnout, an extraordinary 84 per cent, a turnout comparable only to that of 1990, the year of unification. The German public has fully grasped the delicacy of the historical ‘hairpin bend’ we are facing and they wanted to express themselves en masse, giving full and complete democratic solidity to their institutions. This is the best response to the shouted lectures of the new prophets from overseas.

The second lesson is that Germany remains a stronghold of representative democracy, thanks to a proportional electoral system and parliamentarianism that remain irreplaceable bulwarks in a society that is increasingly polarised, segmented and captured by communication ‘bubbles’.

The results show that the German model succeeds in reflecting the multiple sensitivities of an advanced and complex country, forcing political forces to dialogue and mediate, while keeping at bay the extremisms that would undermine democratic foundations. At a time when political and social polarisation seems to be rampant, first and foremost in the United States, Germany’s mixed proportional system – with its double vote, majoritarian for single-member constituencies and proportional for party lists – ensures that no significant voice is excluded from the Bundestag, provided it exceeds the 5% threshold. This mechanism does not distort but functions as a mirror of German society: fragmented yes, but represented in its plurality. Friedrich Merz‘s CDU/CSU, though victorious, cannot govern alone and will have to seek an alliance with those political forces with which it can most credibly build a concrete and feasible government programme, starting with the SPD, in an exercise of compromise that is the very essence of parliamentarianism and, at bottom, of our society itself.

A formula not unheard of in Germany, given that Angela Merkel governed for 16 years with the Social Democrats, demonstrating that right and left can dialogue, pragmatically, setting stakes in a programme of do’s and don’ts (a pitiless comparison with Italy, where the debate remains nailed to a stale tribal dichotomy).

The fragmentation of the vote does not produce ungovernability, but forces everyone to sit down at the negotiating table and ask themselves the problem of the real government of the country, beyond the slogans and hysteria of permanent election campaigns. The illusory idea with which we fell in love in the 1990s with the principle that‘one wins and the other is in opposition‘, or that‘on the same night we know who governs‘, has led to electoral victories, but not to building government plans and programmes.

No party, not even the one with the most votes, can impose its agenda without negotiation: a dynamic that reflects the maturity of a democracy called upon to respond to complex challenges, from the economic crisis to the war in Ukraine, from Europe’s complicated new relationship with the United States to the governance of furious technological innovations.

This is the strength of proportionalism and parliamentarianism: turning diversity into dialogue, polarisation into compromise, extremism into powerlessness. In a world where democracies falter under the blows of populism and foreign interference, Germany proves that a well-designed system can not only survive, but thrive. Long live proportionalism, long live parliamentarianism: they are the real winners on 23 February 2025.

The need for dialogue, this ‘condemnation’ to mediation, is a natural barrier against extremists. The AfD, despite its exploit at 20.8%, remains outside any government coalition banally because its programme has no compatibility with the ideas and country vision of the other political forces.

It is not just a prejudicial issue – the ‘cordon sanitaire’, the famous Brandmauer against the impulses of the extreme right – but a very real issue of incompatibility between government programmes. The positions of the extremists, who thrive on stoking fears about immigration, economic decline and national identity, find no possible settlement in a system designed to reward mediation and punish intransigence. Their goal of dissolving democratic institutions, perhaps dreaming of an exit from the EU or a rapprochement with Russia, clashes with a political and ‘arithmetical’ reality that isolates them: German parliamentarianism is an effective antidote against authoritarian drifts.

And here another crucial aspect comes into play: the failure of the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin to infiltrate the political system of the largest country in the European Union. Moscow, with the support of its new American allies – Elon Musk and Donald Trump – has targeted the AfD as a Trojan horse to destabilise Germany and, by extension, Europe. Musk, with his public speeches and outspoken support for the AfD, sought to amplify and in his own way normalise the extremist message through his X platform, while Trump, fresh from his victory in the US, winked at a radical right that shares his hostility towards NATO and the EU. Yet, this plan foundered. The proportional electoral system has given the AfD impressive representation, but German parliamentarianism has confined it to the margins. No possible coalition will include a pro-Russian party promoting ‘remigration’ and disengagement from Kyiv: Germany has chosen stability and Europe, not chaos and isolationism. Our hope is that now the future Chancellor Merz will be able to bring Germany back to the leading role it deserves, first of all on the very hot dossier of European strategic and military autonomy from the United States.

PS. Tip to mariners: forget Merkel’s style (of which the former chancellor herself, in her recent book, pointed out the inadequacy for the times), with Merz we will (and this is important) have a more assertive Germany.