Misplaced Passion, Myopic Policy

The Free Democratic Party (FDP) has earned the moniker of “kingmaker” in German politics. A party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal ...

A party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal, the FDP has historically bridged the gap between the two big tent parties of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Never capturing more than 15% of the national vote, the FDP nonetheless has been a staple of German postwar politics, having served as a junior coalition partner in 18 of the country’s 25 federal governments since 1949. This made it all the more stunning in 2013 when the party narrowly missed the 5% threshold for entry into Parliament. Even more shocking four years later when the FDP roared back into the Bundestag with nearly 11% of the vote and a revamped image under a young, charismatic new leader. With this came an expansion of the FDP’s policy platform to include a heavier emphasis on “future-proof” topics such as digitalization, startups and innovation, human rights and self-determination, and reducing bureaucracy.

This strategy carried through to 2021 with another record performance, earning the FDP a spot in a tripartite coalition with the SPD and the Green Party. While the move was meant to cement the FDP’s historic comeback, the coalition was marked by in-fighting and disparate policy decisions that culminated in its dissolution after three years. Its death knell was the decision to reform the debt brake, a constitutional amendment enforcing strict limits on structural debt. The fiscally-conscious FDP fought doggedly to keep the debt brake in place, but ultimately found itself increasingly isolated from its left-leaning governing partners who wanted to abolish the debt brake to allow for more spending. The government collapsed at the end of 2024 and the FDP shouldered much of the blame. The party then garnered just 4.3% of the vote in the 2025 snap elections, keeping the FDP out of the Bundestag for the second time. The debt brake was then abolished shortly after the election by a coalition of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens. The reputational damage of this episode has been devastating for the FDP, particularly among younger voters who had been swayed by the party’s progress-oriented platform, not its attachment to principled macroeconomic arguments limiting investment in the future.

Relegated to the sidelines at the federal level, the FDP’s only chance for influence now is at the state level. In 2026, five German states will hold elections, making it a Superwahljahr (super election year). The first chances for success would be in the western states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. Both carry heavy political and historical significance for the party. The FDP is currently part of the governing coalition in Rhineland-Palatinate, and has always enjoyed a strong base in industry-heavy Baden-Württemberg. The FDP’s annual Dreikönigstreffen (Three Kings Day meeting) is a homing signal for liberals across the country to come together and set the party’s priorities for the year—always taking place in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg’s capital.

Fittingly, Baden-Württemberg was the first to head to the polls, on March 8. The FDP’s campaign tagline was “Back to Forward”, a clear attempt to return to the future-oriented policies that spurred the party’s first revival. Lead candidate Hans-Ulrich Rülke promised a state where citizens would be less encumbered by bureaucracy, open to advancements in technology and industry, and above all, be guided by an innovation-first mindset. Rülke proudly proclaimed that the FDP had never been excluded from the state legislature in Baden-Württemberg, implying that it did not intend to start now. FDP national Secretary General Nicole Büttner was so confident in her party’s chances that she pledged to shave her head if the party did not get above 5% of the vote share needed to enter the state legislature.

Unfortunately, this bravado did not translate into ballots. The FDP garnered just 4.4% of the vote, while the Greens kept their seat of power and the CDU trailed just behind. At its best, the FDP was only polling at 6%, so falling below the threshold was always a very real possibility. But the reality is still difficult to grasp for the FDP’s party’s supporters—if the party cannot drum up enough votes in a traditional state-level stronghold, it almost certainly will not inspire confidence for a return to the national stage. FDP Party Chairman Christian Dürr has chalked up the defeat in Baden-Württemberg to a failure of timing, not to leadership or the party’s platform. But timing will also not be on their side in Rhineland-Palatinate at the end of March, where the FDP is polling so poorly that the party has been grouped into the “other” category.

Ultimately, the success of a political party is predicated on trust—trust that those in office will represent the issues closest to their voters; trust that the party is willing to negotiate in good faith in order to achieve the best outcomes; and trust that when those first two conditions are not met, that the party will look internally and course-correct. The FDP went through this exercise after the 2013 election, convincing voters that they were a party of the future, rather than just historical legacy. But the debt brake debacle has shown that the FDP suffered a lasting loss of credibility with voters when they took a dogmatic approach on a single policy issue, at the price of long-term progress in other areas.

Throughout the recent campaign in Baden-Württemberg, the FDP emphasized a readiness for Verantwortung (responsibility). But with responsibility must come accountability, and Dürr’s comments indicate this appears to be lacking. If the election in Rhineland-Palatinate goes as expected on March 22, the FDP will fall out of power once more, leaving just Saxony-Anhalt as the only state where it is a member of a governing coalition. And that is also likely to change, as the FDP is polling just 2% ahead of Saxony-Anhalt’s election in September. The era of the FDP as kingmaker is clearly over. But if the ultimate goal is another shot at the Bundestag in 2029, the FDP does not just need another rebrand: it needs a reckoning.

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