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In Germany, where the polls for the European elections closed at 6pm, the first exit polls published by the main German newspapers, which are not official results, give the first party the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), the main party center-right led for many years by Angela Merkel, with 30 percent.
Also according to the first data, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party would have obtained 16 percent, gaining 5.5 percent compared to the last European elections in 2019. In recent weeks, polls had shown a decline in the popularity of AfD, significantly diminished following a series of scandals involving leading members of the party. The latest concerned some statements about the Nazis made by the frontrunner in the European elections, Maximilian Krah, which led to the expulsion of the AfD from the European group of far-right and Eurosceptic parties Identity and Democracy (ID).
The center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which includes the current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is currently at 14 percent. It is not a good result for the main government party, which since 2021 has led a coalition with the Liberals (FDP) and the Greens, who according to the data available so far would have taken 12.5 percent (compared to the 2019 European elections, the Greens would have lost 8 percentage points).
The latest polls gave the CDU at 30 percent, the Greens and SPD at 15 percent, and the AfD at 14 percent.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice (BSW) party, founded by the far-left politician Sahra Wagenknecht who has recently started to support very controversial positions typical of conservative parties, took 6 percent, in line with the polls.
Wagenknecht’s good result most likely influenced the result of the left-wing party Die Linke (The Left), which according to exit polls would have received only 3 percent of the votes.
