The economy as destiny: A detailed analysis of the economic programs for the 2025 federal election

Preliminary note: Germany in the economic crisis

Germany is in a deep structural crisis. The German economy shrank by 0.2 percent in 2024 – following an already weak 2023 with negative growth. At the beginning of 2026, the Federal Statistical Office confirmed that GDP grew by a meager 0.2 percent in 2025 – a hint of recovery, but no sign of a new beginning. This leaves Germany as the only major economy in the Eurozone facing economic ruin: two consecutive years of recession followed by growth that is barely statistically measurable.

The structural causes are well-known and have remained unresolved for years: exploding energy prices as a result of the war in Ukraine and the hasty phase-out of nuclear power and coal, an overwhelming bureaucratic burden, a dramatic shortage of skilled workers, dilapidated infrastructure, a lack of progress in digitalization, and an international competitive environment that is putting increasing pressure on Germany – from Chinese industrial corporations as well as from American reindustrialization policies. According to the OECD, Germany urgently needs to strengthen its business dynamics and address the skills shortage in order to return to a growth trajectory.

Against this backdrop, the 2025 federal election was a pivotal moment of historic significance. The question was not only which party would govern, but whether the German parties were even capable of presenting viable, implementable, and economically coherent programs. The following analysis subjects the programs of the six relevant parties – CDU/CSU, AfD, SPD, Greens, FDP, and Left Party – to a critical economic evaluation based on uniform criteria.

The foundation: What good economic policy must achieve

Before evaluating the individual programs, it is useful to establish an analytical benchmark. Sound economic policy must fulfill three dimensions: First, it must be fiscally sustainable, meaning it must remain within realistic budgetary constraints. Second, it must be structurally effective, addressing the actual obstacles to growth—and not merely treating symptoms or catering to specific voter groups. And third, it must be consistent with national policy, keeping the overall interests of the economy in mind, rather than simply providing advantages to certain special interest groups.

All programs will be measured against these three criteria – financial feasibility, structural effectiveness, and consistency with government policy – ​​using the same standard. No program fully meets all three criteria. However, the degree to which they are met or missed varies considerably – and these differences are presented here without ideological bias.

CDU/CSU: Solid foundation, but too little courage for structural change

Economic policy aims and substance of the program

For the 2025 federal election, the CDU/CSU presented the most comprehensive economic program of all the participating parties. Under the guiding principle of a "growth agenda," the CDU/CSU introduced a broad package of measures focused on tax relief, deregulation, strengthening Germany's economic position, and energy security. The CDU/CSU called for a significant reduction in corporate taxes to a maximum of 25 percent to regain international competitiveness. This was complemented by income tax relief, particularly for middle-income earners, and the abolition of the solidarity surcharge for all remaining taxpayers.

On the issue of energy, the CDU/CSU alliance opted for a pragmatic approach: a return to competitive energy prices through a reduction in the electricity tax, a review of extending the operating lives of nuclear power plants, and a massive expansion of renewable energies in parallel. This is economically sound because high energy prices are demonstrably one of the main causes of deindustrialization in Germany. Particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and energy-intensive industries, exploding electricity costs since 2022 have led to business closures and the relocation of production abroad.

The coalition agreement that the CDU/CSU ultimately concluded with the SPD included key economic policy promises: tax relief for businesses and citizens, an investment program for infrastructure, digitalization, and security, as well as measures to reduce bureaucracy were enshrined in law. The Federal Ministry of Finance described this course as a “growth course for Germany” with the goal of making the country competitive again after years of stagnation.

Strengths and weaknesses

The strength of the CDU/CSU program lies in its economic policy clarity: it is based on the supply-side principle, relies on performance incentives, and recognizes the need to defend Germany as a production location. This distinguishes it favorably from the state-centric or distribution-oriented programs of other parties.

The weakness lies in the lack of consistency. A genuine structural break – such as a radical reform of the pension system, a fundamental simplification of tax law, or an honest discussion about the limits of the German welfare state model – was deliberately avoided in the program. This is politically understandable, but economically problematic. Germany doesn't need cosmetic renovations, but a profound overhaul of its economic architecture. Furthermore, the question of how to finance many of the promises remains vague. Tax cuts in the hundreds of billions only make sense if the expenditure side is reformed consistently at the same time – and this was lacking in the program.

Overall rating: good, but in need of improvement. In terms of content, it's the strongest program in the field, with the right economic policy compass – but lacking the courage to answer the really difficult questions.

AfD: Correct diagnoses, controversial therapy – an objective assessment

What the AfD program actually contains

For the 2025 federal election, the AfD presented an economic program that focused largely on supply-side tax relief, deregulation, and energy price reductions. Specifically, the party called for a comprehensive tax reform with significant relief for employees and businesses, the abolition of the solidarity surcharge, a reduction in corporate taxes, the dismantling of bureaucracy and government regulations, and a radical shift in energy policy: a return to nuclear power, a departure from the forced expansion of renewable energies, and lowering energy prices as an industrial policy priority.

Furthermore, the program includes demands for an end to mass immigration into the social welfare system, the abolition of the basic income in its current form, and a transfer of powers back from the EU level to the national level. In the long term, the AfD aims for a renegotiation of Germany's EU membership – even considering the option of an orderly withdrawal if fundamental EU reform fails.

What makes this program economically compelling

Several key positions of the AfD's economic policy are factually well-founded and align with positions also held by economic research institutes and business associations. The demand for a return to nuclear power reflects a growing consensus among energy economists: nuclear power provides reliable, low-CO₂ baseload electricity at predictable costs. The hasty German nuclear phase-out under the previous coalition government was an energy policy mistake that further drove up electricity prices and jeopardized security of supply – a fact now widely acknowledged even outside the AfD.

The AfD's tax plans – particularly the relief for lower- and middle-income earners and the reduction of corporate taxes – are consistent with supply-side policies. They follow a neoliberal logic also shared by the CDU/CSU and FDP. The goal of rewarding performance and making Germany a more attractive production location from a tax perspective is both legitimate and necessary from an economic policy standpoint.

The reduction of bureaucracy, which the AfD also demands, addresses a key pain point for the German economy. In international comparisons of regulatory burden, Germany regularly ranks near the bottom. Small and medium-sized enterprises lose thousands of working hours annually to bureaucratic obligations that generate no productive added value. Anyone who seriously tackles this problem is addressing one of the country's most significant obstacles to growth.

Criticism of uncontrolled immigration into the social welfare system also has an economic dimension: if immigration primarily leads to reliance on social benefits rather than integration into the labor market, it creates fiscal burdens that weaken the federal budget in the long run. This observation is empirically verifiable and should be discussed without ideological exaggeration.

Where the program becomes economically problematic

The economically weakest and riskiest position in the AfD's platform is the long-term option of leaving the EU. Around half of all German exports go to EU countries. Germany is more deeply integrated into European supply chains than any other country. An actual exit would mean tariff barriers, legal uncertainties, and the loss of access to the single market – with serious consequences for Germany's export-dependent industry. The German Economic Institute (IW) estimated the risk at up to 2.2 million jobs threatened in the event of a Dexit (German exit from the EU). While these figures may depend on the specific model used and be debatable in detail, their basic premise is economically plausible.

The situation is similar with a potential return to the Deutsche Mark. A new German currency would immediately appreciate massively against the euro and the dollar because the financial markets would price in Germany's economic strength. This would suddenly make German exports more expensive and significantly weaken the competitiveness of German industry on global markets. While the AfD does not formulate this as an immediate government measure, it keeps it open as a long-term option – which in itself creates economic uncertainty.

It is important to put this criticism into perspective: Leaving the EU or returning to the Deutsche Mark are not guaranteed plans of the AfD should it participate in government, but rather medium-term programmatic options. Nevertheless, they are part of the party's platform and must be evaluated economically – just as one evaluates the utopian nationalization demands of the Left Party or the unrealistic financing models of the Green Party.

Overall rating: differentiated

The AfD's economic program is not a homogeneous mass, but a mixed offering. It contains compelling supply-side policy elements – tax cuts, lower energy prices through nuclear power, deregulation – which are factually justified and also shared by other economically liberal parties. At the same time, it contains foreign policy positions whose implementation, according to economic assessments, would pose considerable risks for Germany's export-dependent economy.

A fair assessment must address both aspects. The program is neither universally good nor universally bad – its core elements regarding domestic economic policy are sound, while its foreign and European policy dimensions involve considerable risks. Overall assessment: mixed in terms of economic policy – ​​commendable approaches to taxation, energy, and regulation, but calculable external economic risks associated with the EU positions that cannot be ignored.

SPD: Industrial policy activism with funding gaps

The social democratic economic approach

The SPD ran in 2025 with a program that can be described as “social industrial policy.” Its core elements included: an increase in the statutory minimum wage to €15, a €100 billion state investment fund for infrastructure and transformation, maintaining the debt brake with exceptions for investments, tax relief for low and middle incomes, and higher taxes on very high incomes and wealth.

The SPD recognized Germany's investment gap as a central problem – and they were right. Decades of neglecting roads, bridges, schools, railways, and the digital network have structurally weakened Germany. The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) and other research institutes have estimated the investment backlog at several hundred billion euros. The approach of massively increasing public investment is therefore fundamentally sound.

Financing problems and clientelistic logic

The problem lies in the financing and the focus on specific demographics. The SPD spoke of a 100-billion-euro investment fund, but largely left open how this would be financed without new debt or significant tax increases. The minimum wage increase to 15 euros is politically effective as a signal, but economically it's a double-edged sword: In structurally weak regions with lower wage levels and lower productivity, rising minimum wages would jeopardize jobs – an effect the SPD largely ignored in its policy discussions.

Tax increases for top earners and the wealthy sound socially just, but they don't solve Germany's structural competitiveness problem. On the contrary, Germany already has a very high tax burden compared to other countries. Further tax increases would drive away capital, weaken investment incentives, and motivate high achievers to emigrate. The SPD isn't adequately addressing the supply side of the economy and is instead focusing on demand management and redistribution – this is classic social democratic economic ideology, but it's not a complete answer to the structural crisis of Germany's export model.

The coalition with the CDU/CSU ultimately saved the SPD's economic program from itself: In the joint coalition agreement, the social democratic redistribution reflexes were balanced by supply-side policies of the CDU/CSU.

Overall assessment: The program correctly diagnoses the investment gap but offers incorrect or incomplete solutions. It is too focused on employees and unions, with insufficient attention paid to competitiveness and the supply side. It needs improvement.

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Greens: Ambitious transformation without economic grounding

The Green approach: Climate policy as economic policy

The Greens campaigned on a platform of combining climate protection and economic modernization. Their program envisioned massive government investment in renewable energies, building renovation, the transformation of transportation, and the hydrogen economy. This was complemented by demands for a climate allowance as social compensation, an industrial electricity price for energy-intensive companies, and the maintenance of ambitious climate targets.

The Greens are right about one thing: the ecological transformation of German industry is not a choice, but a necessity. Anyone who wants to maintain export-oriented industries in the long term must invest in clean technologies, because global markets and regulatory frameworks are pushing precisely in this direction. The Greens' goal is therefore not strategically wrong.

Utopian dimensions and unrealistic implementation

The problem lies in the pace, funding, and regulatory logic. The Greens tend to want to politically dictate the speed of economic transformation – with the result that businesses and citizens are overwhelmed. The building renovation program, initiated under the previous Green-led coalition government, ended in a PR disaster. Overburdened tradespeople, bureaucratic hurdles to applications, and insufficient matching funds for low-income households led to frustration and a political backlash.

The idea of ​​a cap on industrial electricity prices was sound – energy-intensive companies need planning certainty regarding energy costs. However, the specific details in the election manifesto remained vague and would have resulted in considerable costs, which in turn would have had to be financed from the state budget. The GdW (Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies) sharply criticized the Green Party's program: the proposed instruments for housing provision were misguided and would worsen the situation rather than improve it.

The fundamental dilemma facing the Greens in economic policy is ideological: the party deeply distrusts market mechanisms and instead relies on state intervention, prohibitions, and regulations. This may be justified in certain areas—such as emissions trading or the protection of public goods. However, as a general economic policy philosophy, it leads to overregulation, stifling innovation, and economic inefficiency. The bureaucratic burden on the German economy is, among other things, a result of years of pro-regulation policies.

Overall assessment: The goals are correct (transformation, investment, energy security), but the approach is too statist, too reliant on regulation, and in some parts utopian in its pace and financing logic. It focuses too heavily on climate activists and too little on the overall economy. In its current form, it is not fully implementable.

FDP: Correct in terms of economic policy, but too one-dimensional in its programming

The FDP's freedom program

The FDP presented the clearest economic policy profile of all parties. Under the heading “Less government, more freedom,” it demanded: consistent adherence to the debt brake, extensive tax relief for businesses and citizens, radical reduction of bureaucracy, deregulation of the labor market, abolition of the solidarity surcharge, reduction of corporate taxes to below 25 percent, and the abolition of the supply chain law and other burdensome regulations.

The FDP's program, with its fundamental focus on economic policy, is well-founded from a scientific perspective. Strengthening the supply side, creating performance incentives, reducing the government spending ratio, and cutting red tape are precisely the measures that Germany structurally needs. The German Economic Institute, the Federation of German Industries (BDI), and other business associations essentially share this analysis.

One-dimensionality as a structural problem

The FDP's platform, however, suffers from a dangerous one-dimensionality. It reduces economic policy complexity to a single axis: more market, less state. This is true in many areas – but not in all. Education, infrastructure, basic research, and social security are areas where government involvement remains indispensable. The FDP tends to underestimate or politically ignore these limits of market failure.

The financing issue is particularly problematic: The tax cuts promised by the FDP amounted to approximately 95 billion euros per year. At the same time, the FDP insisted on strict adherence to the debt brake. The solution – massive spending cuts in the social sector – was only hinted at in the program, but never specifically quantified. Anyone who wants to reduce taxes on this scale without incurring debt must state where the cuts will be made – this is a requirement of economic policy honesty that the FDP did not fully meet.

Overall assessment: The most consistent program in terms of economic policy, but too one-dimensional and incomplete in its financing. Right direction, incomplete roadmap. Needs improvement.

The Left: Radical distribution policies without a basis in economic reality

The program of system critique

The Left Party ran in 2025 with a platform that formulated a consistent alternative to the existing economic system. Key demands included: a one-time wealth tax for the super-rich, a permanent wealth tax on net assets exceeding one million euros, a nationwide rent cap, a four-day workweek with full pay, massive nationalizations in the energy sector and at Deutsche Bahn (German Rail), a universal health insurance system, and the abolition of the debt brake.

The Left addresses real problems: housing shortages, wealth inequality, energy prices, precarious employment. These problems actually exist and are often inadequately addressed by other parties. In this respect, the Left has a legitimate function of social critique.

Why the program would fail in practice

Nevertheless, the Left's economic program as a whole is the weakest and least feasible of all the parties analyzed here. A wealth tax on business assets—which would inevitably be affected by a tax-free allowance of one million euros—would pose an existential threat to family businesses. In Germany, a significant portion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are organized under legal structures where business and private assets are difficult to separate. Businesses that had to declare essential operating capital as taxable assets would face liquidity problems. The Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln) has demonstrated this in several studies.

The nationwide rent cap was introduced in Berlin in 2020 and declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2021. Furthermore, the Berlin experiment demonstrated what economists have known for decades: rent caps lead to landlords removing apartments from the market, causing investments in new construction and renovation to plummet and the housing supply to decrease in the medium to long term. A four-day week with full wage compensation would increase unit labor costs by approximately 25 percent – ​​in an economy already facing significant competitive challenges related to labor costs.

The nationalizations sought by the Left contradict decades of economic research: State-owned enterprises are regularly less efficient than private ones in competitive markets. Even under state ownership, Deutsche Bahn is a prime example of the failure of state-run corporate governance – more state ownership would not solve the problem, but rather exacerbate it.

Overall assessment: The weakest economic program in the field. While it makes accurate diagnoses of social inequality and the housing shortage, the proposed instruments are either unconstitutional, economically counterproductive, or utopian. It lacks a viable overall political concept.

The big comparison: What's good, and what's missing everywhere?

An honest review of the programs paints a sobering picture. Not a single party has presented an economic program that fully meets all three criteria – financial viability, structural effectiveness, and consistency with state policy.

The CDU/CSU comes closest to the ideal: its program is largely financially viable, structurally sound, and consistent with state policy – ​​but too timid regarding the necessary structural reforms. The FDP's economic policy is convincing, but dishonest in its financing and too narrow in its social policy. The SPD recognizes the investment problem but solves it with the wrong or insufficient instruments. The Greens have the right long-term goal, but an unrealistic understanding of pace and regulation. The AfD's domestic economic policy – ​​taxes, energy, bureaucracy – contains objectively justified demands, but its EU positions introduce significant external economic risks into its program. The Left Party fights against real injustices, but with methods that are demonstrably counterproductive from an economic perspective.

The real failure lies deeper: In Germany, there is no party that has formulated a truly courageous, coherent, and honest modernization agenda. Such an agenda would mean: restructuring the welfare state to be more productivity-oriented, reforming pensions, fundamentally overhauling the education system, making energy supply technology-neutral and cost-efficient, radically reducing bureaucracy (not just cosmetically), systematically promoting skilled immigration while simultaneously limiting irregular migration, and actively shaping European competition policy instead of merely administering it.

What Germany really needs: The economic policy void in all programs

Germany's structural crisis is deeper than most party platforms admit. The 2025 OECD report makes it clear that Germany is not suffering from a short-term lack of demand, but from a structural productivity problem. Too little innovation, too slow digitalization, too high costs, too few skilled workers, too much bureaucracy – these are the core problems.

The solution lies in a consistent supply shock: tax relief for businesses and investments, combined with a consistent reduction in bureaucracy, a top-tier education initiative, targeted skilled immigration, and a competitive energy policy. This will initially require budgetary resources, but will unleash long-term growth momentum. None of the existing programs has fully and coherently grasped this overall context.

Germany is facing a historic turning point. The next five to ten years will determine whether Germany modernizes its industrial core and enters the second half of the 21st century as a leading export nation – or whether it remains in a slow decline that will not lead to an overt crisis, but to a gradual loss of significance. The party platforms for the 2025 federal election, with varying degrees of quality, were a modest response to an immense challenge.

A society that is not economically successful in the long term loses its internal cohesion – this is not a political thesis, but a historically proven reality. Political parties bear the responsibility of not only writing election manifestos, but also government programs that live up to this responsibility.