The European Election Campaign in Germany

Until the early 1980s, only three parties – the CDU/CSU sister parties, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and the Free Democrats (FDP) – had seats in the German Bundestag. In alternating coalitions, together they shaped successive governments of the Federal Republic. 1983 not only marked the beginning of the Kohl era, but saw a new party emerge, Die Grünen (The Greens). This was the first addition to the left of the political spectrum. Reunification in 1990 then brought the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), with its main constituency in eastern Germany, into the Bundestag. In the aftermath of the labour market reforms of the then-coalition of Social Democrats and Greens, a new left movement emerged that in 2007 merged with the PDS to become Die Linke (The Left party). This left the German Bundestag with five parties – strictly speaking, six (including the Bavarian regional conservatives) – on the eve of the federal election in 2017.