I first wrote about far-right populism when it wasn’t a major force in European politics. I interviewed Marine Le Pen in 2008. I met Nigel Farage in 2015 and covered Alternative for Germany, AfD, that same year. At that point, many observers still considered it unthinkable that any of them would come to power.
Fast forward a decade and all three are the most popular political forces in their countries. And as Le Pen and Farage made clear just yesterday, despite investigations into their finances, they still see themselves as being on a march to victory.
So far, centrist parties have failed to stop them. But today, Jim Tankersley, my successor as Berlin bureau chief, writes about — bear with me — a 34-point reform package designed to do just that. An inspiring rallying cry it is not. But as Jim writes, the German government is making a bet that voters will reward politicians for doing something, however unflashy. (I’m not so sure.)
The German government unveiled a 34-point plan last week to reignite the nation’s sputtering economy. It arrived late, to mixed reviews from experts and the public. Its details — pension reforms and modest tax cuts, among others — are not exactly political red meat, except perhaps among the most techno-minded of technocrats.
Which made the bold promises that have accompanied the plan all the more striking. This plan, officials have suggested, could be a blueprint for stopping the far right’s momentum — not just in Germany, but across Europe.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a conservative, and his center-left coalition partners are desperately trying to hold off far-right challengers they see as threats to Germany’s democratic system, who appeal to voters feeling battered by rising prices, slowing economic growth and growing ruptures in the fabric of their societies. They believe the only way to prevail is to show that the political center can deliver results and govern effectively.
This is why the fate of the package, and German voters’ response to it, will be watched so closely across the continent.
Elsewhere, centrist parties are also trying to contain populist rivals. The German experience will provide clues as to whether such parties can regain the trust of voters with policies that chip away at problems by applying incomplete or imperfect solutions — or whether, at this point in 2026, that kind of politics is what anyone actually wants anymore.
A game changer?
The package is a series of measures that, supporters say, will combine to revitalize the stagnating German economy and lift the spirits of a country saddened by much more than its early ouster from the World Cup.
These include efforts to shore up public pensions by raising the national retirement age, and a modest tax cut for middle-income families, offset by marginally higher taxes on high earners. The package also cuts regulations, loosens some labor laws and generally tries to goad Germans into working more.
Smart economists differ on how much of an economic boost those measures will add up to. Some say there could be a real boost to growth. Others say they’re too watered down to matter much.
The political outcome, though, might depend less on the details of the policies and more on how they will be perceived — whether they give voters the sense that centrist parties are still capable of improving things for ordinary people.
Betting on action
Europe’s political leaders have two wildly diverging theories on how to solve people’s biggest problems.
The first says simple solutions — deporting enough immigrants, say, or cutting enough government — are being blocked by corrupt or incompetent elected officials. Remove them, and those solutions can be implemented, and will improve things. This view is gaining fans from Britain to Germany, where support for far-right populist parties is surging.
The alternative theory, espoused by the centrists who still govern much of Europe, is that solutions require difficult choices, which large swaths of the electorate might very well hate. (One provision of Merz’s plan, for example, has already drawn intense public backlash: a move to force workers to get a doctor’s note on their first day of calling in sick from their jobs. It’s an attempt to address the problem of absenteeism; it also risks annoying a lot of people.)
It can add up to an eat-your-vegetables philosophy. But something I hear frequently in my reporting is that centrists believe their difficult solutions will, with time, improve life in Europe, and that voters will ultimately reward them for it.
It was that theory that brought Merz and his coalition partners, the Social Democrats, together late last week in Berlin. They announced a whole bushel of vegetables.
Merz frequently says it will take time to solve Germany’s problems, but that solving them is the only way to hold off the AfD. He knows how fragile the compromise he helped broker appears. Business groups dislike some elements of the plan. Labor groups dislike other parts. Loud enough opposition could doom it before it passes Parliament.
And even if it passes, voters could recoil. They could decide these plans are the wrong sort of vegetables — too focused on shoring up public budgets and encouraging longer work hours, perhaps, and not focused enough on saving jobs threatened by automation and global competition.
The government’s bet, though, is that these plans will demonstrate that it can still solve problems.
“The citizens of our country want decisions and they do not want disputes, and that is exactly what we have delivered,” Merz said. “I perceive an enormous willingness in the public to leave stagnation behind and dare to make a new start.”
We’ll find out if he’s right.
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