While the parties forming the "traffic light" coalition, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens and the FDP Liberals continue to lose votes, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is fighting to keep its second place, despite having dropped slightly.

A little over a month before the European elections, which will take place in Germany on June 09, posters of the various parties fill the streets of Berlin, most with written messages, others risking images of party figures.

The SPD, which has 15.5% in an average of the latest polls released, and gives it a third place, bets on the image of the top candidate, Katarina Barley, with different personalities of the party. She even appears next to Chancellor Olaf Scholz, asking for the bet on the "strongest" vote for Europe.

"The 'traditional' parties have never been brilliant in mobilizing the electorate, they focus on being close to their national parties, the well-known figures of their parties, often not explaining the transnational dimension of these elections", says researcher Sophia Russack, from the European think tank CEPS (Center for European Policy Studies).

"The far right does not want participation in the European elections to increase, but at the same time it wants to secure seats in the European Parliament and has improved its results. What they do with apparent success is campaigning on social media, mainly through TikTok", she points out, in statements to the Lusa agency.

The AfD, which has been involved in scandals, the most recent with the top candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, accused of receiving bribes from Russia, has 15.9% and seems to gather the preferences of the younger electorate. This year, for the first time in Germany, it is possible to vote from the age of 16.

"The generations that are most likely to go to the polls are the older ones, the younger ones will go less, from the start. But that does not mean that they are more disconnected from politics, they are also the ones who protest the most in the streets, it means that they have a different way of participating in politics. But the parties do not seem to me to have a strategy or a special message for the younger electorate", says Endre Borbáth, from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg.

"We see that the two parties seen by the younger generations as renewal are the Greens and the AfD, and, therefore, it is not expected that this slice of the electorate will vote massively, and if they vote, it will be mostly for these two parties", clarifies the professor, a specialist in participation analysis, in statements to Lusa.

A total of around 373 million citizens of the European Union (EU) have the right to vote, of which 64.9 million people live in Germany. The Federal Electoral Commission has approved 35 parties and political associations for the European elections.

The two researchers heard by Lusa believe that the fact that the European elections are seen as secondary is gradually being reversed, with an increase in participation.

"This growth is closely related to the crises we are currently experiencing, people are afraid of being abandoned in a global context, so to speak. The significance of the European Union is given importance. Another reason that may justify the growth was Brexit, which was not understood as a successful project", justifies Sophia Russack from CEPS.

"The European elections are becoming transnational elections in the sense of the issues and problems they present, and also of the campaigns on these same issues that the parties present. I believe that these are no exception with themes such as European integration, support for farmers, national security, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, all of this in the sights of the parties and the voters", points out Endre Borbáth.

In the 2019 European elections, the CDU, the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, received 28.9% of the votes with the CSU, the Greens 20.5%, the SPD 15.8% and the AfD 11%, the Left (Die Linke) 5.5% and the FDP 5.4%.

In the average of the polls for the 2024 European elections, the Greens obtain 14.6%, the FDP 3.6% and Sahra Wagenknecht's new party (BSW) 5.9%.

Germany elects 96 deputies, the largest number of representatives.

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