European elections: Greens lose among young voters, AfD wins

The CDU/CSU have won the European elections in Germany – ever since 1979. The Greens in particular emerged as losers. The AfD gained ground. For the first time in Germany, people under the age of 16 were allowed to participate in European elections. The results of the first-time voters were eagerly awaited.

The Greens lost a lot of support among the under-30s, reaching only twelve percent. In 2019, the party got 33 percent and remains the strongest force in this age.

Among young and first-time voters between the ages of 16 and 24, they reached only eleven percent. In the under-25 group, the CDU/CSU and AfD are tied at 17 percent each. The SPD only gets nine percent of 16 to 24-year-olds. The left reached seven percent of under-30s, more than double its overall result.

The CDU/CSU was able to rely on its long-term voters: among the over-60s, it reached 39 percent. Among those under 60, 25 percent, ten percent have SPD-like symptoms, which is much lower than the overall outcome. The AfD gets 19 percent of the under-60s, while only 11 percent of the over-60s.

If you compare the voting behavior of women and men in Germany, you can see that the Greens do better among women by three percentage points (from 14 percent to eleven percent). In the AfD, men are seven percentage points stronger: 19 percent to twelve percent. For other parties, gender differences are smaller.

About the Greens’ slapping of young voters, a “Welt” journalist writes: “The election results in Germany will finally lead to the realization that young people are not just radio listeners.” The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Ulf Bossard comments: “Greens brutally shredded, SPD badly gutted: European elections reveal the political failure of the red-green party to find answers to questions that really matter to citizens. .”

The “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” writes that “the SPD and the Greens will be severely punished in Germany for the EU to continue leading the way in climate protection and social security”.

It sounds similar in “Frankenpost”: “The greens are completely out of control. Ouch, ouch, ouch! (…) But, roughly speaking, the halving of the result – in a negative sense – is simply spectacular. Sometimes difficult to understand and contradictory about climate policy. They have to think now.

Armin Laschet, CDU: “It’s great that the CDU is in first place among young people. But the AfD’s above-average turnout by first-time voters should be a wake-up call. The misjudgment by many in politics and the media that ‘Fridays for the Future’ represent youth is disastrously wrong.

AfD federal leader Tino Gruballa He wrote on Twitter: “It’s just the beginning. We convince the majority through our policies in the interests of the citizens. This is how we will achieve a good turning point for Germany.

She was disappointed Green Party leader Ricardo Long Reacting: “That’s not the claim we went into this election, we’ll do it together,” said the co-party leader on Sunday evening on ARD.

Interior Minister of Thuringia and SPD leader Georg Mayer He described the election result as a “warning signal to all democratic forces”. Now is the time to “put aside party political interests and defend democracy together”.

The Left is East Representative Soren Bellman He said AfD’s victory was a political turning point. “This should be an ultimatum to all parties in the Bundestag,” demanded the Leipzig member of the Bundestag. “Especially the federal government should pursue policies that no longer solve problems, but create additional policies.”