German Levant Policy Becomes Hostage to Merz’s Political Survival

Far-right gains in Germany’s northeast leave Berlin’s Syria, Israel and Turkey files increasingly exposed to a chancellor fighting for his political future

For Damascus, Beirut and Nicosia alike, Sunday made German policy towards the Levant more vulnerable to domestic political pressures — and potentially less predictable.

Germany is one of the biggest donors of aid to Syria, a major arms supplier to Israel and an influential European voice on relations with Damascus and EU–Turkey re-engagement. Each of those files now rests with a chancellor whose party suffered a historic defeat in a state election and who spent election night insisting that he would not resign.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) finished first in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. ZDF projections at 21:05 put the party on 37.9 percent, against 35.7 percent for Minister-President Manuela Schwesig’s Social Democrats (SPD) — more than double the AfD’s 2021 result. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) collapsed to around 5 percent, leaving it fighting for survival in the Schwerin parliament.

AfD candidate Leif-Erik Holm acknowledged that his party could not govern alone but said the AfD had finished first, wanted to govern and expected the other parties to accept talks. Schwesig, meanwhile, stressed that a majority of voters wanted her to remain in office.

Berlin moved in a markedly different direction.

Infratest dimap projections for ARD put Die Linke first on 25.3 percent, ahead of the CDU on 19.1 percent and the AfD on 16.2 percent, with the Greens at 14.5 percent and the SPD at 12.1 percent. The result means Governing Mayor Kai Wegner’s CDU–SPD coalition has lost its majority, opening negotiations over a new government in the German capital.

The results follow the AfD’s 43.8 percent showing in Saxony-Anhalt on 6 September, where the CDU lost more than half its previous vote.

Merz described the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern result as a “disaster” that could not be talked away, saying his party had been squeezed between the SPD and AfD. He nevertheless described the Berlin result as “respectable.” After summoning the CDU presidium to party headquarters, the chancellor defended his reform programme and presented it as part of his response to what he described as growing authoritarian tendencies in German society.

He also made clear that he intends to remain both CDU leader and chancellor.

That determination is now an important variable for Levantine capitals.

Recent surveys underline the scale of Merz’s domestic difficulties. An Infratest dimap poll in early September found only 13 percent of respondents saying he was doing a good job, while an INSA survey found just 14 percent regarded him as the right person to remain chancellor.

The political consequences for the Levant are not predetermined. But a weakened chancellor facing growing pressure over migration, public spending and the AfD’s advance may have less political room to defend expensive overseas commitments, resist demands for faster deportations to Syria or preserve Berlin’s existing balancing acts involving Israel, Syria and Turkey.

Sunday’s elections did not rewrite German foreign policy. They did, however, make domestic political survival a more important factor in determining how confidently Berlin can pursue it.