A Guide to German Party Election Platforms 2025

Christian Democratic Union (CDU): “Policy Change for Germany”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Continue support for Ukraine and Israel.
• Commit to NATO’s 2 percent defense goal.
• Strengthen transatlantic partnerships, especially with France and Poland to combat illegal immigration.
• Maintain close economic relations with China but also at the same time reduce critical dependencies.
• Establish a National Security Council based in the Federal Chancellery.
• Lead European missile defense shield program.
• Reintroduce conscription-based military service.
• Punish those supporting terrorism, close anti-Semitic mosques, and combat both right- and left-wing extremism.
• Introduce a new Customs Police Force.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Stick to the existing debt brake.
• Support commuter allowance and modernize labor laws.
• Be an attractive location for foreign skilled workers.
• Establish a digital “Work and Stay Agency” for foreign professionals.
• Lower construction costs by removing building and planning laws.
• Expand e-mobility infrastructure and support the German auto industry, including reversing the combustion engine ban.
• Improve railway infrastructure and streamline digital vehicle registration.

Taxation and Pensions

• Ease tax burdens on low- and middle-income earners.
• Reduce social security contributions to 40 percent.
• Lower corporate tax rates by 25 percent and eliminate the German Supply Chain Act.
• Increase tax-free allowances for savings, land transfer, and inheritance taxes.
• Make overtime bonuses tax-free for full-time employment.
• Maintain retirement age and pension rules.
• No pension cuts, introduce “active pensions,” and tax-free post-retirement salary.
• Mandatory pension scheme for the self-employed.
• Introduce an “early start” pension.

Immigration

• End illegal immigration, enforce strict border controls, and expedite asylum repatriations, particularly for Syrians and Afghans.
• Halt family reunification for those with subsidiary protection and voluntary admission programs.
• Reform EU Asylum law, sending asylum seekers to safe third countries.

Law and Order

• Strengthen criminal law, expedite proceedings, and use electronic ankle monitors.
• Prioritize eliminating violence against women and using facial recognition in crime hot spots.
• Require web providers to store IP addresses and tackle online child crimes.
• Reverse the existing cannabis law.

Healthcare

• Introduce a public insurance scheme to guarantee all people access to equivalent health services.
• Improve both urban and rural healthcare.
• Reduce appointment waiting times and strengthen patient management.
• Promote pharmacies and incentivize nursing careers.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Create mandatory societal integration agreements, prioritize German language courses, and reverse dual citizenship reform.
• Promote a gap year for young people.
• Reduce foreign influence on mosques.
• Replace Bürgergeld (citizens benefit) with a new system.
• Support sports clubs with increased volunteer allowances.
• Improve parental leave systems, increase child benefits, and maintain marital tax breaks.
• Align child allowance with basic parental allowances and provide favorable provisions for childcare.
• Increase tax deductibles for childcare and repeal the Self-Determination Act that allows the personal declaration of one’s gender.

Environment and Energy

• Reduce electricity taxes and focus on grid affordability and security.
• Use smart meters and digital tools.
• Seek a targeted expansion of renewable energies.
• Keep nuclear energy as an option and abolish existing heating laws.
• Reintroduce full agricultural diesel rebate and improve farming sustainability.
• Control the wolf population and support forestry technology.
• Commit to emissions trading and carbon transfers.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Reduce government staff by at least 10 percent.
  • Reject liability for EU state debts and protect German savers.
  • Accelerate planning and approval processes for infrastructure projects.
• Housing
  • Reduce construction costs through more development areas and lower, sensible construction standards.
  • Stand for effective and appropriate tenant protection, such as against rent increases.
  • Promote social housing construction.
• Education
  • Mandate language tests for preschool children and core subject focus (math, German language, sports).
  • Require advanced bachelor’s degrees nationwide and further develop vocational schools with flexible options.
  • Improve educational support laws.
• Technology
  • Drive digitalization and AI innovation, ensuring businesses spend 3.5 percent of GDP on R&D by 2030.
  • Focus on aerospace and quantum computing, and encourage entrepreneurship through start-up protection.

Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU): “Bring Germany Back in Order”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Continue support for Israel and Ukraine.
• Prioritize EU and German interests.
  • Denounce German liability for other EU nation’s debts.
  • End EU taxonomy and the German Supply Chain Act.
• Embrace Realpolitik to strengthen transatlantic relations.
  • Commit fully to NATO.
• Create a National Security Council to further network foreign relations.
• Commit two to three percent of the German GDP to the Bundeswehr, with investments in Bavaria in particular.
• Establish a nationwide Bundeswehr law based on the Bavarian model.
  • Modernize the military, including a drone army of at least 100,000 drones.
• Provide stronger incentives for military conscription.
  • Designate those who are willing and fit for military service to conscription.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Uphold the constitutional debt brake.
• Modernize labor laws.
  • Increase decision making flexibility for private sector workers.
  • Establish a “Work-and-Stay Agency” to attract skilled foreign workers.
• Support large industry firms and SMEs while prioritizing German job security.
• Stimulate entrepreneurship by providing monetary incentives.
• Oppose anti-car regulations.
  • Modernize and financially support automotive companies.
  • Increase affordability for obtaining a driver’s license.
• Expand existing infrastructure.
  • Reform the Deutsche Bahn (German railway system) to improve performance.
  • Strengthen e-mobility services.

Taxation and Pensions

• Protect German savers.
  • Shrink the income tax rate and regularly adjust the income tax rate to inflation
  • Decrease the value-added tax on food and beverages to 7 percent.
  • Ensure tax-free overtime payments.
• Increase the basic tax-free allowance and the income threshold for the top tax bracket.
• Reduce corporate taxes on earnings to 25 percent and end solidarity surcharges.
• Keep existing retirement protections and stop pension cuts.
  • Workers past retirement age should receive up to 2,000 euros per month tax-free.
• Introduce new basic income system.
  • Alter maternity pensions for all mothers.
  • Establish an “Early Start” pension program, a private retirement savings account for those 6-18 years old.
• Increase the child tax allowance to match the basic tax allowance for parents.
  • Commit to income splitting for married couples.
  • Increase allowance to single parents to five thousand euros.

Immigration

• Significantly tighten German immigration policy.
  • Accelerate and tighten deportation and asylum procedures.
• Limit the right to asylum from an individually enforceable right to an objective guarantee.
  • Restrict asylum family reunifications.
• Introduce a third-country support system.
  • Asylum seekers are taken to a third country that is deemed safe, outside of Germany.
• Enforce immediate deportation for migrants committing crimes.
• Design right-to-stay systems based on one’s income and housing.
• Limit welfare benefits to asylum seekers to the “bed, bread, and soap” principle.
• Overturn the previous government’s ruling on citizenship laws.
  • Ensure longer waiting periods to receive German citizenship.

Law and Order

• Enforce a zero-tolerance policy against crime.
  • Lower the federal age of criminal responsibility.
  • Apply full criminal law for offenders eighteen to twenty-one.
• Prioritize protection against scams for the elderly, police, and at-risk individuals.
• Strengthen civil defense and police protection.
  • Strengthen technological capacities to assist communications.
• Expand video surveillance in public areas.
  • Utilize AI powered police research and AI facial recognition.
• Deny residency or revoke citizenship against anti-Semitic crimes and those calling for the abolishment of the free democratic order.

Healthcare

• Cohesively reform hospital and nursing care in rural and urban locations.
• Achieve shorter waiting times for health appointments.
• Support long-term care insurance and introduce co-financing and savings options.
• Remedy the healthcare staffing shortage through reduced bureaucracy, careful planning, and supporting working conditions.
• Improve conditions for home healthcare and for family caregivers.
• Expand preventative measures when screening for widespread disease.
• Increase the supply of medicines and the domestic production of medicine.
  • Implement a national reserve for essential medicines.
• Preserve local pharmacies.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Commit to “Judeo-Christian Western values and traditions.”
  • Oppose all anti-Semitism.
• End state funding for left-wing activist programs.
  • Abolish the Self-Determination Act, which allows for changes in gender identity.
  • Reject gender-inclusive language in all public spaces.
  • Remove left-leaning ideological wording from laws.
• Commit to current minimum wage (12.82 euros per hour) with independent minimum wage commissions.
• Commit to Paragraph 218 of the German Criminal Codes, i.e., the current German abortion framework.
• Outlaw the current cannabis law.
  • Prioritize job placement and reduce waiting periods.
  • Emphasize those able to work must work and not live at societal expense.
    • Allow termination for refusal of work.
  • Advocate for volunteer work by removing bureaucratic burdens and providing incentives.
    • Mandate a “voluntary social year” of work, linking social responsibilities to military service.
  • Reform parental leave and benefit systems.
    • Improve childcare systems and increase the tax deductible for childcare.
  • Advocate to host international sporting events to be held in Germany and Bavaria.

Environment and Energy

• End energy policies driven by the standing “traffic light coalition.”
  • Establish a “Growth Deal” and abolish the existing Green Deal.
  • Overturn bans on combustion engines.
• Commit to fully supporting farmers and food security as in the German constitution.
  • Reintroduce the agricultural diesel refund for farmers.
  • Oppose the shut-down of set-aside land or pastures.
• Promote increased levels of sustainable farming.
• Collaborate with the Czech Republic and France to research safe means for nuclear power plant generation.
• Promote cost efficient and sustainable means of renewable energy.
  • Promote low-emission heating methods, such as wood.
• Fund the national battery research program and target two national flagship programs
• Incentivize energy-efficient renovations by providing deductions from inheritance tax.
• Return CO2 pricing back to citizens by reducing electricity taxes to the EU minimum.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Reduce bureaucratic involvement in deregulation laws, contracting, and statistical duties.
• Housing
  • Implement affordable construction by easing building regulations.
  • Support social housing.
  • Raise income limits and allow subsidies for low-income home-ownership programs.
  • Implement transfer-tax exemptions for first-time homeowners.
  • Commit to fair tenant protection and rent regulation.
• Education
  • Simplify student financial aid applications.
  • Strengthen research institutions and technology-centered universities.
• Technology
  • Develop a high-tech framework based on the Bavarian model.
  • Dedicate 3.5 percent of GDP to developmental technological spending and research.
    • Expand tax incentives to allow a research cap allowance of twelve million dollars per company.
  • Implement media outlets and public broadcasts that are unbiased and promote diverse and neutral opinions.

Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD): “More for you. Better for Germany.”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• The defense budget will permanently meet NATO’s 2 percent GDP target.
• Supports Ukraine with military, financial, and humanitarian aid for “as long as necessary” but opposes sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
• European cohesion should be at the center of German security policy strategy.
  • Expand Germany as a central hub for logistics in order to enable NATO to respond quickly to security challenges in Europe.
  • Europe needs a well-supported and competitive European defense industry.
• Introduce a new, flexible military service program based on boosting volunteerism.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Boost economic growth through investments in business, education, and infrastructure.
  • Supported by a “Germany Fund” pooling public and private capital, initially worth €100 billion.
• Weaken the debt brake to allow more government investment.
• Seek a modernization of working hours.
• Companies investing in Germany would receive a “Made-in-Germany Bonus.”
  • Deduct 10 percent of investment costs (e.g., buying a new machine) from their taxes.
• Subsidize the purchase of new or used German-made electric vehicles to support the auto industry.
• Expand Germany’s long-distance and ICE railway network.
  • Offer the Deutschlandticket

Taxation and Pensions

• Tax cuts for workers, benefiting 95 percent of taxpayers through income tax reform.
  • Reduce VAT for food from 7 percent to 5 percent.
  • To fund this, the top 1 percent of earners, large inheritances, and wealth will face higher taxation.
• Eliminate flat tax on capital income so that capital gains are taxed at the same rate as labor income.
• Maintain pensions at 48 percent of average income.
• Include all employed people in the statutory pension insurance scheme.
  • Promote company pension schemes.
• Workers with 45 years of contributions should be able to retire two years early without pension deductions.
• Oppose raising the retirement age further past 67 years old.

Law and Order

• Strengthen the police, improve cybersecurity, combat extremism, and fight organized crime.
• Modernize civil protection and intensify cooperation between the federal and state governments.

Immigration

• Control migration with a “humanitarian responsibility.”
• Acknowledges the existing individual human right to asylum.
• Significant acceleration of asylum procedures.
• Continue family reunification for those in need of protection.
• Supports “quick and consistent deportations” for criminals.
• Does not support restricting family reunification or moving asylum processing outside the EU.
• Prefers voluntary deportations because they are more humane.
• Establish comprehensive migration agreements that facilitate legal pathways for training and employment while also enhancing local support for refugee resettlement.
• Skilled workers and refugees should be integrated more easily into the job market.

Social Reform and Public Services

• The minimum wage should increase to 15 euro per hour by 2026.
• Extend paid family leave for two weeks after childbirth.
  • Parental allowance should increase from 14 to 18 months.
• Children in daycares and elementary schools should receive free lunch.
• Use Bürgergeld to support people on their way out of unemployment.
  • Earmark additional funds for job centers intended to improve job counselling.
• Support collective bargaining agreements to reduce pay gaps in the workforce.

Healthcare

• Public health insurance for all.
  • Implement a unified insurance system where all workers pay in.
  • Eliminate the divide between public and private insurance to ensure equal access to treatment.
  • Include an appointment guarantee.
• Reduce profit-seeking within the healthcare sector, with the majority of profits made required to flow back into the public health system.
• Better support nurses, including improving their working conditions and increasing their wages.
• Strengthen the rural health system.

Environment and Energy

• Germany must work to limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius.
• Grid fees will not rise further.
• Offer poorer households heat pump leasing.
• Increase urban development funding to enable cities to build green infrastructure and expand heat-resilient urban planning.
  • Mobilize private funds to transition to green energy as well.
• Support the continued expansion of green energy sources, such as wind power.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies through digitalization.
• Housing
  • Extend rent control measures indefinitely.
  • Increase housing construction.
    • Want to continue the “Young Housing” program in order to create affordable housing for trainees and students.
  • Reduce short-term rentals.
  • Only a maximum rent increase of 6 percent over three years in areas with a tight housing market.
• Education
  • More investment in schools and daycares.
  • Better working conditions for teachers.
  • Targeted support for disadvantaged schools.
  • No child should leave primary school without being able to speak, listen, read, write and do arithmetic sufficiently.
• Technology
  • Increase the nationwide supply of fiber optics and mobile communication services.
  • Use automation and AI to speed up administrative processes and make them more efficient.

The Greens: “Growing Together”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Strengthen EU and NATO alliances and increase the defense budget.
• Continue support for Ukraine and counteract Russian aggression.
• Balance partnerships with China and support a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine.
• Expand global trade partnerships while ensuring fair labor and environmental standards.
• Enforce anti-dumping tariffs and prevent trade loopholes.
• Sanction EU states violating democratic values and reform EU Parliament and voting laws.
• End EU funding for non-democratic governments.
• Make voluntary military service more attractive and expand rapid recruitment mechanisms for the Bundeswehr.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Harmonize EU financial laws and establish a “Germany Fund” for infrastructure, education, and decarbonization.
• Reform the debt brake to enable sustainable investments and innovation.
• Reduce business electricity taxes and enhance financial sustainability and economic competitiveness.
• Enact a 10 percent investment premium for companies (excluding real estate) for five years.
• Continue to fund public transport to serve as an alternative to cars, even in rural areas.
• Speed up and expand renovations of the German rail network.
• The Deutschlandticket is here to stay.
• Implement a national speed limit of 130 km/h on highways.

Taxation and Pensions

• Ensure a guaranteed pension after thirty years of work contributions.
• Introduce incentives to make it easier for people to work longer past the retirement age if they want to.
• Maintain pensions at 48 percent of average income.
• Through their proposed citizens’ fund that invests sustainably, introduce additional retirement provisions.
• In the future, civil servants and politicians must also pay into the pension.

Immigration

• Promote a common European migration policy.
  • Reject permanent internal border controls.
• Oppose the outsourcing of asylum procedures to third countries.
• Create regulated migration routes for students, trainees, and skilled workers through visa agreements and training partnerships.
  • Partner countries should take back nationals who do not have a right of residence in Germany.
• Set up a digital immigration agency to modernize and accelerate the immigration process.
  • Maintain the right to individual case review.
• Reduce obstacles to work for refugees so that they can integrate more quickly into German life.

Law and Order

• Modernize and expand the police force to take efficient action against extremism and organized crime.
• Introduce laws protecting victims of partner violence as well as those affected by digital attacks.
• Combat extremism through an “early prevention” and a democracy promotion law.
• Expand the Federal Office for Combating Financial Crime into a financial police force.

Healthcare

• Prioritize the establishment of a nationwide healthcare system.
  • Introduce a solidarity-based public insurance that also includes privately insured people.
• Introduce “community health workers” and “medicine on wheels” to improve care in rural areas.
• Increase digitization in the healthcare sector.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Raise the minimum wage to 15 euros per hour.
• Expand national tourism strategy and consumer rights.
• Regulate and decriminalize abortions nationwide.
• Lower voting age from 18 to 16 and address cost-of-living and daycare shortages.
• Ensure protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual identity in the Basic Law.
• Strengthen youth violence prevention and retirement transition efforts.

Environment and Energy

• Implement the Green Deal and achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
• Lower taxes on electricity and reduce grid fees.
• Cut CO2 emissions via green investments, climate contracts, and stricter industry standards.
• Maintain the existing CO2 pricing system.
• Ban CO2 marine storage and outlaw oil/gas extraction in the North and Baltic Seas by 2035.
• Restore 20 percent of land and marine areas by 2030, increase nature reserves, clean rivers, and prevent deforestation.
• End coal use by 2030 and support e-mobility and charging infrastructure.
• Reduce plastic waste and promote a circular economy and place environmental costs on corporations.
• Push global plastic waste agreement and ban deep-sea mining.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Reduce SME regulations and eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to renewable energy expansion.
  • Increase AI and digitalization in government administration.
  • More transparency at the political level by making lobby meetings visible and capping party donations.
• Agriculture
  • Prevent patents on seeds/plants and ensure GMO-free food options and clear labeling.
  • Reduce pesticide use by 50 percent in the EU by 2030 and aim for 30 percent organic farming.
  • Introduce soil protection law and designate food production zones.
  • Enforce mandatory animal welfare labeling and outlaw animal testing.
  • Support food rescue and redistribution and develop climate-safe fuel (e-kerosene).
• Education
  • Increase early education and teacher incentives and support universities and migrant students through a “Future Investment Programme for Education.”
  • Seek closer cooperation between the federal and state governments in education policy.
  • Modernize daycare centers and schools.
    • Ensure all children can read, write, and do arithmetic at the end of primary school.
  • Increase the attractiveness of vocational training.
  • Promote historic education on National Socialism and the Holocaust.
• Housing
  • Extend the rent brake and limit rent increases above the local average.
  • Protect tenants, especially against issues such as rent debts.
  • Modernize vacant apartments into affordable housing.
  • Increase housing by adding stories to existing buildings, converting unused office space into living space, and converting attics and reactivating vacant buildings.
• Technology
  • Invest 3.5 percent of GDP in research and development and support green energy, hydrogen, and AI.
  • Introduce the “Deutschland-App,” a one-stop application connecting citizens and companies to state services.
  • Modernize digital infrastructure (5G, AI, cybersecurity) and strengthen public administration and innovation agencies.
  • Bring high-speed internet to every corner of the country.

Alternative for Germany (AfD): “Time for Germany.”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Pro-Russia and anti-EU agenda.
• Germany must lift all sanctions on Russia and resume trade relations.
• Germany should leave the EU and the euro (“Dexit”).
• Believe Ukraine should stay a neutral state outside NATO and the EU.
• Call for the reinstatement of conscription, including alternative civilian service pathways.
  • Service in the armed forces should be reserved exclusively for German citizens.
  • The German military should once again cultivate “German values and traditions.”
• Support comprehensive equipment upgrades and personnel reinforcements for the Bundeswehr to ensure its role in national defense.
  • Calls for the expansion of an autonomous and efficient defense technology industry in Germany.
• Reject the stationing of long-range U.S. weapon systems in Germany.
• Expand economic, scientific, and cultural contacts with China.
  • Stop development aid to China.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Focus on promoting SMEs, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
• Reduce government intervention in the market to a minimum.
• Seek to comply with the existing debt brake system.
• Abolish the German Supply Chain Act meant to ensure fair labor standards abroad.
• Reduce social welfare and environmental spending.
• Cash must remain a legal means of payment.
  • Bring back the Deutsche Mark
• Germany must have a better developed and coordinated local and long-distance public transport network, based on the Swiss model.
  • Supports the expansion of the rail network, especially into neglected rural areas.
  • The Deutschlandticket must be offered at an “honest price.”
  • Reduce government involvement and delays in infrastructure projects.
• Expand highways and reject speed limits.
• End subsidies for EV infrastructure.
• Prioritize private cars.
  • Support the continuation of internal combustion engines.
  • Preserve and expand parking spots in urban areas.

Taxation and Pension

• Lower taxes and simplify the tax system to strengthen Germany as a competitive economic hub.
• Higher basic tax-free income.
• Lower corporate and income taxes.
• Reduce the VAT on catering services and children’s supplies.
• Implement a flexible retirement age.
  • Encourage longer working lives through monetary incentives.
• Increase pension benefits.
  • Bring more contributors to the pension insurance, including politicians and civil servants.
• Call for childcare allowances up to a child’s third year and tax splitting for families.
• Foreign residents should not be able to rely on German welfare in retirement.

Immigration

• Strict immigration limits and border controls.
  • Use the German police force to monitor the border.
  • Refugees should be held and processed outside Germany.
  • Immediately deport migrants who have overstayed their residence permits or broken the law.
• Reduce mass immigration by reducing social incentives for migrants.
  • Deny Ukrainian refugees welfare benefits.
  • Activate voluntary and mandatory deportation programs to ensure the return of Syrian nationals back to Syria.
  • End asylum procedure advice programs.
• Recognize the right of residence for asylum seekers only after ten years.
• Put massive pressure on countries of origin that are not willing to take migrants back.
• Reverse the increasingly lax requirements for obtaining German citizenship.
• Reform the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights.
  • Germany must withdraw from the UN Global Compact for Migration and the UN Global Compact on Refugees.

Law and Order

• Strengthen the police with state-of-the-art equipment, more personnel, and uniform salaries across Germany to combat Islamism and left-wing extremism.
• Enforce stricter penalties, implement more thorough investigative procedures, and ensure the consistent seizure of assets.
  • Consistent fight against crime, especially against foreign offenders.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Restrict abortion except for rape or medical emergencies to preserve the right to life for the unborn.
  • Promote higher birth rates.
• Stricter requirements for welfare recipients, including mandatory community service.
• Restructure the Bürgergeld system to ensure workforce participation and German financial security.
• Abolish Public Broadcasting fees.
  • Reform of public broadcasting, shifting to a leaner model focused on neutral information.
• Promote “German cultural values.”
• Introduce a welcome bonus of 20,000 euros for newborn babies.

Healthcare

• Call for a fundamental reform of the healthcare system to reduce bureaucracy and enhance patient safety.
• Improve compensation for medical professionals and expand healthcare services in rural areas.
• Calls for the merger of health and long-term care insurance schemes.
• Flat rates per case should be abolished and more money is to be invested in outpatient care.
• Rejects compulsory vaccination programs.
• Naturopaths should be retained.

Environment and Energy

• Withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords.
• Restart nuclear power and nuclear research centers.
  • Wind and solar projects should be severely restricted.
• Resume importing Russian gas.
• Advocate for a sustainable and independent agricultural sector in Germany, free from excessive EU regulations.
  • Documentation requirements for farmers must be drastically reduced.
• Extend coal power plant lifespans.
• Disputes the scientific consensus on man-made climate change.
• Abolish the carbon tax and subsidies for renewable energy.
  • Reduce energy taxes.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy:
  • Citizens should have the right to vote in nationwide referendums on significant legislative changes, constitutional amendments, and international treaties.
  • Allow citizens to send legislative proposals directly to state and national governments.
• Housing
  • Construction costs and ancillary housing costs must be significantly reduced.
    • Simplify building laws.
  • Create a framework where tenants can purchase their apartments from public housing companies.
    • Institute tax incentives to enable people to transition from renting to homeownership.
  • Locals are to be given preference for residential buildings.
• Education
  • Return to a performance-oriented education system.
    • Implement standardized admissions tests for universities.
    • Encourage the establishment of vocational schools.
  • Universities must ensure that courses and lectures are free of “politically motivated” messages.
    • Muslim students may not be granted special rights on the basis of their faith.
  • Digitization should serve as a supplement, not as a substitute for traditional teaching methods.
    • Online lessons should be avoided as much as possible.
  • “Compulsory education” instead of compulsory schooling.
• Technology
  • Oppose all forms of censorship, especially those enforced through state-imposed agreements with social media platforms.
  • Prioritize data protection.
  • Advocate for increased usage of AI in Germany.

Free Democratic Party (FDP): “Everything can be changed.”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• No budget limits on Ukraine aid.
  • Demand the immediate delivery of Taurus missiles.
• Supports Ukraine joining the EU & NATO.
• Germany should have the strongest military in Europe.
  • Long-term goal of building a joint European army.
• Against mandatory national service or a year of volunteer service.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Keep the debt brake.
  • Opposes taking on new government debt.
• Make Germany a more attractive location for investment.
  • Corporate taxes should drop below 25 percent.
  • Three-year bureaucracy moratorium to reduce red tape for businesses.
  • Shift focus from agriculture subsidies to innovation and productivity increases.
• Implement pro-car policies, such as reversing the ban on combustion engines.
  • No highway speed limits.
  • Revise the emission requirements for cars and end EU car emission limits.
  • Promote synthetic fuels (e-fuels) instead of banning combustion engines.
• Make it cheaper to obtain a driver’s license.
• Ensure public transport is more flexible, based on local demand.
  • Break up Deutsche Bahn to increase operational efficiency.
• Lower air travel rates.

Taxation and Pensions

• Progressive income tax with a higher basic tax-free allowance.
  • Top tax rate should only apply to incomes above €96,600.
• Oppose wealth and financial transaction taxes.
• Reduce access to unemployment pensions for those who can work but choose not to.
  • Lower contributions and entitlements to unemployment benefits.
• Flexible retirement age and pensions.
  • The later someone retires, the higher their pension.
• Stock-based pension plan for private investment in retirement funds.

Immigration

• Centralize immigration procedure into a uniform code maintained by a single state agency.
  • More regulated and controlled process.
• Create new status for refugees.
• Receive fewer welfare benefits but more job support.
• Suspend family reunification programs for people already under protection.
• Process asylum claims outside Germany in safe third countries.
• Anyone who is in Germany without the right to stay must return to their home country immediately.
• Make it easier for highly qualified foreign specialists to enter the labor market.
  • Well-integrated and employed refugees should have a pathway to citizenship.

Law and Order

• Strengthen security authorities without infringing upon civil rights.
• Against nationwide facial recognition programs.
• Create more efficient cooperation between security authorities.

Healthcare

• Strengthen the dual system of mandatory and private health insurance.
• Increase digitization and reduce bureaucracy to make healthcare more efficient.
• Lower health insurance costs for digital users.
  • People using online health apps should pay lower insurance premiums.
• Approve new, innovative medicines faster.
• Supports easier access to organ donation and the right to assisted suicide.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Flexible weekly working hours instead of daily maximum limits.
  • Reject regulations for a four-day week with full wage compensation.
• Modernize strike laws for critical sectors (transport, health, childcare).
  • Institute mandatory arbitration agreements and minimum notice periods before striking.
• Merge welfare programs into one simplified system.
• Supports cannabis legalization.
• Add sexual identity protection to the Basic Law.

Environment and Energy

• Establish an emissions trading system instead of environmental regulations.
  • Replace energy taxes with a global CO2 price.
  • Introduce a climate dividend to pay back revenues from emissions trading.
• Cut electricity taxes and eliminate the EU heating tax.
• Expand domestic natural gas production and reopening nuclear power plants.
• Postpone climate neutrality deadline until 2050 (the EU deadline), instead of 2045.
• Call for an EU-wide phase-out plan from Russian energy purchases.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Merge government ministries and downsize the administrative structure.
• Housing
  • Abolish rent price caps.
  • Speed up construction permits, abolishing unnecessary environmental assessments.
    • Give priority to residential construction.
  • Higher tax deductions for housing investments.
• Education
  • Mandatory language tests for preschoolers, followed by compulsory language support if needed.
  • Introduce uniform nationwide standards for children’s education programs.
    • Include economics and computer science as mandatory subjects.
  • Better salaries and working conditions for teachers.
    • Technical modernization of schools.
  • Lower fees in vocational training and higher education.
  • Abolish the Conference of Education Ministers to give more power to local institutions.
• Technology
  • Make Germany one of the strongest locations for artificial intelligence in the world.
  • Set up a Federal Ministry for Digitization to oversee digitization programs throughout Germany.

Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW): “Our country deserves more.”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• The German government should take the initiative to find “a ceasefire and a realistic peace plan” in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
  • Support the diplomatic efforts of China and the Global South in this regard.
• Taxpayers’ money should not be spent in Ukraine.
  • No more arms deliveries to the Ukrainian government, as this will only prolong the war and anger Russia.
  • Germany should reopen diplomatic ties with Russia to ensure a more stable Europe.
• S. medium-range missiles must not be stationed in Germany.
• Reject the stationing of German soldiers on the Russian border or in the South China Sea.
• End EU expansion. Need an independent Europe not tied to U.S. or Chinese interests.
• Humanitarian organizations in crisis areas should be given more support.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Advocate for a 180-degree turn in economic and energy policy.
  • Germany must focus on “stable trade relations with as many partners as possible” instead of escalating sanctions.
• The debt brake must be reformed to allow needed investments into Germany’s crumbling infrastructure.
  • Hundreds of thousands of bridges, roads, railways, digital networks, and school buildings must be rebuilt or renovated.
• Increase government spending to promote innovative domestic companies and start-ups.

Taxation and Pensions

• Call for major tax reform initiatives that lower the financial burden on the lower and middle class.
  • Replace capital gains tax and a wealth tax on “extremely large assets,” specifically on inheritances.
• Replace the citizen’s benefit with performance-based unemployment insurance.
• Implement pension reform that increases benefits for everyone by 120 euros to accommodate for recent inflation.
• Include a minimum pension of 1500 euros per month after 40 years of employment, subsequently staggered according to contribution years.
  • A basic tax-free allowance on welfare contributions of 2,000 euros, financed by an increase in the contribution assessment thresholds.

Immigration

• Germany’s borders must be strengthened.
  • Believe there are too many refugees entering and living in Germany.
  • Allege that refugees take needed care and money away from German citizens.
• End social benefits for anyone entering Germany from a safe third country.
  • State they have no right of residence and thus no entitlement to normal asylum procedures and support.
• Asylum procedures should take place outside the EU.
  • Germany should stop preventing wider EU asylum reform.
• The law should be consistently enforced against refugees who commit crimes, and deportations must increase as was promised by the current chancellor.

Law and Order

• Call for an end to government and corporate surveillance.
• Germany’s police force should be better equipped.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Ensure a 15-euro minimum wage.
• Support employees, their trade unions, and works councils.
  • Increase in collective bargaining coverage and a facilitation of further collective bargaining agreements.
• Reject both right-wing extremism and left-wing “cancel culture.”
  • Fundamental rights such as freedom of expression are to be strengthened.

Healthcare

• Introduce a mandatory public insurance for healthcare, “into which all citizens pay with their income” to permanently lower contributions.
• Include dentures and visual aids once again in the full range of services covered by statutory health insurance.
• Hospital privatization and closures must be stopped and reversed.
  • General practitioners should be paid more.
• Significantly reduce co-payments for nursing home residents.
  • Call for full nursing insurance, financed primarily with tax revenue.
• Create more spots for medical students, train more nursing staff, and offer better pay.
  • Reverse the trend of recruiting doctors from “poorer countries.”
• Advocate for a committee of inquiry focused on the coronavirus pandemic, a study on vaccine-related damages, and a corona amnesty law that refunds fines imposed for violations.

Environment and Energy

• Ensure a steady supply of raw materials and cheap energy to help German manufacturing.
  • State oil and gas sanctions against Russia have severely hurt German companies.
  • Abandon the carbon pricing system.
  • Reintroduce long-term energy import contracts, focusing on securing the lowest price possible.
• Lift the ban on combustion engines.
  • Instead, introduce a public leasing scheme for e-cars and low-consumption combustion engines (under 5 liters) based on the French model, priced at 58 euros per month.
  • Withdraw the Building Energy Act (GEG), including the use of government funds to replace functioning gas heating systems with heat pumps.
• Combat climate change and environmental destruction through the development of innovative key technologies for a climate-neutral economy.
  • Believe “blind activism and ill-thought-out measures do not help the climate.”

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • The German bureaucratic system must be reformed and streamlined.
  • Remove career politicians from high-level government positions.
• Housing
  • Institute a nationwide cap on rent.
  • Freeze rent increases until 2030 in places where housing price increases have outpaced income growth.
  • Stimulate more public housing projects through low-interest loans and government spending.
  • Guarantee a property transfer tax exemption for first-time home purchases intended for personal use, excluding luxury properties.
• Education
  • Introduce uniform curriculum and exams across Germany.
  • Reemphasize “essential skills” like reading, writing, and arithmetic in the learning curriculum.
  • Remove cell phones and tablets from primary schools.
    • Ban social media, similar to the Australian model.
  • Language tests for all children aged three and older, with compulsory daycare attendance if children lack adequate speaking skills.
  • “Good and free lunch” for all children.
  • Provide federal funding to cover the first year of sports club membership for all children, with a subsidy of up to 150 euros per year.
• Technology
  • Create a central online portal for citizens and companies as a “one-stop-shop” for all government services.
  • Promote the development and use of open-source software as well as freely available AI models.
  • Advocate for a legally protected right to non-digital participation in public life.

Die Linke (The Left): “Everyone wants to govern. We want to change.”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for its violation of international law.
• Call for a ceasefire and peace in Ukraine, Gaza, and all war zones around the world.
• Reject the rearmament of the German military.
  • Believe the Bundeswehr should be a purely defensive army.
  • The Bundeswehr should withdraw from all foreign missions and not be deployed domestically.
  • Reject advertising by the military at job centers, schools, and universities.
• Ban weapons of mass destruction and all arms exports.
  • S. nuclear weapons stationed in Germany must be withdrawn.
  • No increases in the military budget. Demand instead a 10 percent reduction.
  • Remove combat drones from the Bundeswehr.
• EU policy must be standardized and expanded across all levels, from taxation to environmental protection initiatives.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Call for a sustainable, environmentally friendly, and democratic economy.
  • Public services, non-profits, the energy industry, and the financial sector should be socialized and transferred to municipal or cooperative forms of ownership.
  • Establish comprehensive protections against workplace firings.
• Abolish the debt brake.
• Implement a 4-day work week with full wage compensation.
• Price controls for energy and food alongside stricter antitrust laws.
• Sustainable infrastructure development should prioritize traffic avoidance, short distances, and energy-saving means of transport.
• Provide a comprehensive, barrier-free public transport service with attractive frequencies and socially acceptable prices.
  • Reintroduce the 9-euro ticket and make it free for students and senior citizens.

Taxation and Pensions

• Abolish VAT on basic foods, hygiene products, and buses and trains.
• Ensure that anyone who earns less than 7,000 euros per month pays less in taxes.
• All taxable incomes below 16,800 euros per year are to remain tax-free.
• The top tax rate must rise to 53 percent, and the super-rich must pay a 75 percent tax.
  • Reintroduce the wealth tax for millionaires and billionaires.
  • Large fortunes, inheritances, capital gains, and corporate profits are to be taxed more heavily.
• Implement an excess profit tax that taxes the extra profits of corporations at 90 percent.
• Raise the monthly basic pension rate to 1,400 euros a month and make it tax-free.
  • Anyone who has worked for forty years should be able to retire whenever.

Immigration

• Support the right to asylum and residence.
  • Ensure work permits from day one.
  • Provide comprehensive protection to people who are persecuted because of their sexual orientation.
• Demand an immediate stop to deportations, especially to war zones and people undergoing “existential hardships.”
• Residence requirements and accommodation in refugee camps must be abolished.

Law and Order

• Disarmament of the police and abolishment of anti-assembly laws.
• Stronger financial support for programs against right-wing extremism.
• Known far-right extremists must have their weapon permits revoked.
• Set up an independent investigative body into extreme right-wing attitudes in the police and the Bundeswehr.
• Protect against digital mass surveillance by the state or corporations.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Ensure a 15-euro minimum wage and a tax-free minimum income.
• Health, unemployment, and pension insurance should be available to all employees.
• Support employees who want to take over a business themselves and continue to run it as a co-op.
  • Make collective bargaining agreements universally binding.
• Ban food waste.

• Believe Germans must stand against all forms of discrimination and exclusion.
• Promote gender equality both at home and in the public sphere.
  • Implement the legal right to accommodation in women’s shelters.
• Victory in Europe Day (May 8th) should be recognized as a public holiday.

Healthcare

• Ensure everyone pays into public health insurance while reducing contributions from 17.1 percent to about 13.3 percent.
• Hospitals should not be privatized but should remain in the public sector.
• Focus on good working conditions for nursing staff and comprehensive healthcare

Environment and Energy

• Aim for 100 percent renewable energy in the long term, focusing on decentralized systems and regional sources.
• Average fuel consumption should be offered at a low-cost base rate.
  • Institute a ban on electricity and gas cuts.
• Remove the carbon tax on refueling and heating.
  • Financially support Germans who are renovating their heating systems.
• The rich and corporations must pay fines for damages to the environment.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • There should be more direct democracy, for example in the form of referendums.
  • There should be a ban on donations from companies to political parties.
• Housing
  • Institute a nationwide cap on rent for six years.
    • In places with particularly severe shortages, rents should be reduced immediately.
  • Improve protection against lease terminations and increase the number of long-term leases.
    • Ban forced evictions that lead to homelessness.
  • Confiscate vacant residential and commercial space and put it to temporary use.
    • Implement a vacancy tax of 10 euros per square meter for unused housing.
  • Heating system replacements should not increase the cost of utilities.
  • Government must transfer, build, and promote public and cooperative housing.
• Education
  • Education should be free of charge and accessible to all people, from daycare to university.
  • Free lunch in daycare centers and schools.
    • Daycare centers must be free of charge, starting in the first year.
• Technology
  • Media content generated by artificial intelligence must be labelled.
    • Platforms are liable for false information and legal violations caused by such content.
  • Promote more open-source software.
  • Promote a local and non-profit expansion of fiber-optic networks.

Freie Wähler (Free Voters): “Responsibility for Germany”

Campaign Platform

Foreign Policy and Security

• Supports Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and advocates for the restoration of Ukraine’s full pre-war territorial sovereignty.
  • Call for international peace efforts to achieve a fair peace deal in Ukraine.
• Advocate for a common European army.
• Promote a year of volunteer service nationwide, which can be served in the armed forces, civil defense, disaster control, or social institutions.

Economy and Infrastructure

• Strengthen rural areas by maintaining and expanding infrastructure, including faster internet connections.
  • Promote digitalization of the economy.
• Bank and supervisory boards are to be held personally liable for serious misconduct.
  • Insolvent banks must be nationalized.
• Keep the debt brake in its current form.

Taxation and Pensions

• Plan tax reform that will relieve small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
• Reduce taxes, costs, and regulations.
  • Implement a 25 percent corporate tax and a 7 percent restaurant tax.
• Implement a 2,000 euro a month income for pensioners that is tax-free.
  • Establish flexible pension models that “allow citizens to retire sooner or later, depending on their personal situation.”
  • Take away state welfare for those able to work but refuse reasonable work.

Immigration

• Push for stricter border protection for Germany and the EU, including asylum procedures.
  • Stop illegal immigration, such as through rejections at the EU’s external borders.
  • Fund reception and repatriation camps located near these external borders.
  • Establish a joint European border guard unit.
• Deport criminals without a German passport.
• Ensure no naturalization without cultural integration.

Law and Order

• Support more power to the police and judiciary system.
  • Increase police presence and more money for investigative authorities.
• There should be an increase in the “maximum use of the penal framework.”
  • Increase prison sentences for violent and sexual offenders.
• Stop the excessive tightening of gun laws for legal gun owners.

Social Reform and Public Services

• Promise “citizen-oriented, ideology-free, implementable” policies.
• Give local municipalities more control and leeway over their internal affairs.
  • Reduce the burden of federal laws and departments.
• Call for laws that ensure age-appropriate use of the internet and media.
• Make working hours more flexible, based on weekly and not daily maximums.
  • Don’t increase the retirement age further.

Healthcare

• Maintain and strengthen safe and consistent healthcare close to home.
  • Stable hospitals and care facilities, local outpatient care, and support for family care services.
  • Ensure independent pharmacies with general practitioner and specialist care.
• Promote healthy food instead of genetically engineered products.

Environment and Energy

• Stop the phase-out of internal combustion engines by 2035.
  • Remove penalties for the German car industry for non-compliance with EU carbon targets.
• Lower energy prices by building more power plants.
  • Promote hydrogen as a future green energy source.
• Germany must rely on “decentralized energy generation” methods.
  • Coordinate energy policy through the involvement of states and local municipalities.
  • Regional conditions must be taken into account.
• Protect agriculture and forestry from unnecessary EU interventions.
• Determine favorable conservation status and population management of Germany’s wolf population.
• More rainwater retention basins, less land consumption, and more recycling.

Other

• Government Bureaucracy
  • Increase online access to official information for voters to make more informed decisions.
  • Advocate for direct election of the federal president and minister-presidents.
• Housing
  • Expand tax incentives for housing.
  • No excessive standards related to construction and heating.
  • Abolish the inheritance tax.
• Education
  • More uniform federal education policy with smaller classes and more teachers.