The AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt is more than another electoral breakthrough for Europe’s populist right. It is a psychological shock to Germany and, by extension, to the European political order that Berlin has helped sustain for decades.
The immediate consequences for German foreign policy may be limited. Germany’s established parties still maintain a Brandmauer - the political firewall designed to prevent cooperation with the Alternative für Deutschland. But that firewall cannot prevent something more consequential: the steady erosion of the political consensus on which Germany’s European role has rested.
The danger for Europe is not that the AfD suddenly takes control of German foreign policy. It is that the centre of German politics is moving sufficiently to the right that the assumptions underpinning European cooperation can no longer be taken for granted..And nowhere is this more visible than in the four relationships that matter most.
The Franco-German engine may be losing trust
For decades, the Franco-German relationship has been the political engine of European integration. It has rarely been harmonious, but it has been indispensable.
The AfD’s rise introduces a fundamentally different anxiety in Paris. French policymakers do not merely see the party as another populist movement. They see its hostility to deeper European integration, its nationalism and its positions on Russia and European institutions as potentially incompatible with the political project France has sought to advance with Germany. The consequences could be profound.
If France begins to doubt Germany’s long-term commitment to European integration, Paris will inevitably look for alternative coalitions. The very discussion of a smaller European "core" is revealing. It suggests that Europe may be approaching a point where the question is no longer how to integrate further, but how to preserve integration among those still willing to do so. That would be a historic reversal.
The European project was built on the assumption that Germany and France would pull the rest of Europe towards greater integration. A Europe in which France increasingly looks beyond Germany for its political centre would be an entirely different European Union.
Poland and Central Europe will be watching
The reaction from Poland is perhaps even more strategically significant.
For Central and Eastern Europe, Germany is simultaneously an economic powerhouse, a security partner and, historically, a source of profound unease. The AfD's positions on Russia, NATO, European integration and migration inevitably revive some of those anxieties. Warsaw's concern is not ideological. It is geopolitical.
For countries on Europe's eastern flank, Russia is not an abstract foreign-policy question. It is an immediate security threat. Any possibility that Germany - the continent's largest economy and one of its most important military and financial supporters of Ukraine - could eventually move towards a less confrontational posture towards Moscow is deeply unsettling.
Europe's east therefore faces a strategic dilemma: it needs German economic and military weight, but it cannot afford a Germany whose political trajectory becomes unpredictable on Russia and European security.
Ukraine has already exposed Europe's strategic fault line
The war in Ukraine has already demonstrated how dependent European security remains on political cohesion.
Germany's importance is difficult to exaggerate. Its financial, military and logistical support has been central to Europe's ability to sustain Ukraine. Any fundamental change in Berlin's strategic orientation would therefore have consequences far beyond Germany's borders. The AfD's position on Russia and NATO will make its electoral advance particularly unsettling in European capitals.
But the deeper problem is not the AfD alone. It is that the war has exposed a widening divide within Europe over the fundamental question of what kind of power Europe wants to be.
One camp sees Russia as an existential threat requiring greater European defence integration, increased military spending and a long-term strategic confrontation with Moscow. Another increasingly questions the costs of sanctions, military support for Ukraine and the expansion of European institutions.
The AfD is one expression of this second tendency. It is not the cause of the divide. That distinction matters. Europe cannot simply defeat the far right electorally and assume the underlying problem disappears. The grievances that are producing these political movements - economic insecurity, migration, distrust of institutions, cultural anxiety and a perception that political elites are disconnected from voters—are not going away.
Europe's far right will also be taking notes of AfD's victory
Political movements learn from each other's successes. The significance of Saxony-Anhalt therefore may extend well beyond Germany. Spain's Vox and other nationalist and populist movements across Europe will interpret the result not merely as an isolated German event, but as evidence that the political ceiling above Europe's radical right is continuing to rise. That could become self-reinforcing.
Every electoral breakthrough makes the next one less exceptional. Every party that enters government normalises ideas that were previously considered politically unacceptable. And every mainstream party that adopts parts of the populist agenda in an attempt to contain it risks shifting the political centre further to the right.
The result could be a Europe in which the old centre-right/centre-left contest gives way to a much more fundamental struggle over national sovereignty versus European integration. That would change the EU from within..The bigger danger is not an AfD government. It is a Europe without a centre. This is ultimately why the Saxony-Anhalt result matters.
The AfD does not need to enter Germany's federal government tomorrow to change Germany or Europe. Its growing electoral strength is already forcing every other party to reconsider its positions on immigration, European integration, Russia, energy, defence and national sovereignty.
The firewall may keep the AfD outside government. But it cannot keep AfD voters outside the political system. And this is where Europe's traditional parties face their greatest dilemma. They can continue treating the far right as an aberration that must be isolated. Or they can confront the reasons why increasing numbers of Europeans are turning towards it.
The first approach may preserve the firewall. It will not necessarily preserve the centre. Europe's post-war political order was built on three assumptions: Germany would remain firmly anchored in Europe, France and Germany would provide the Union's political direction, and the European consensus would steadily move towards deeper integration. All three assumptions are now under pressure.
The AfD's victory in Saxony-Anhalt is therefore not simply a German electoral story. It is a warning about the political architecture of Europe itself. The question facing Europe is no longer whether the far right can win elections. It is whether the political centre can still offer a compelling enough vision of Europe to prevent those victories from becoming the new normal.
(Views are personal)
Shishir Priyadarshi is President, Chintan Research Foundation & former Director, WTO.