Germany’s head of state is a largely ceremonial president, elected by the Federal Convention, a body formed jointly by the Bundestag (Federal Parliament) and state representatives. The president can serve up to two five-year terms. Former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was reelected for a second presidential term in February 2022.

The federal chancellor—the head of government—is elected by the Bundestag and serves for the duration of a legislative term, unless the Bundestag votes to elect a replacement in a “constructive vote of no confidence.” Incumbent chancellor Olaf Scholz was elected by the Bundestag following free and fair federal elections in 2021. Scholz, of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), leads a coalition government composed of the SPD, the Green Party, and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

The parliament includes a lower house (Bundestag), and an upper house, the 69-seat Federal Council (Bundesrat), which represents the country’s 16 federal states. The Bundestag is elected at least every four years through a mixture of proportional representation and single-member districts. The 2021 elections were competitive and deemed free and fair by local and international election monitors.

In the 2021 elections, the SPD won 206 seats, gaining a narrow majority over the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The CDU–CSU won 196 seats—the party’s worst result since 1949. The Greens won a record 118 seats, and the FDP 92; following the elections, both parties entered a coalition government with the SPD. The far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) took 83 seats, and the far-left party the Left, widely viewed as a successor to the East German communists, took 39. One representative from the Danish minority party South Schleswig Voters’ Committee (SSW) also entered the Bundestag.

Germany’s electoral laws and framework are fair and impartial. German voters cast two ballots—one for a candidate in their constituency and another for a party, with the latter vote determining the seat share a party receives in the Bundestag. If a party wins more seats in the first vote than are permitted by results of the second, it gets to keep these “overhang seats”—yet to avoid distorting the results of the second vote, all other parties receive “balance seats.” With 736 lower-house members, Germany has the world’s second-largest national parliament, after China.

To curtail the increasing size of the Bundestag, its members voted to adopt a two-step electoral reform in 2020. The first step took effect ahead of the 2021 elections and includes a requirement that one party must gain more than three overhang seats for balance seats to be allocated to the other parties. The second step will reduce the number of constituencies, lowering the number of candidates able to win overhang seats in future elections.

While the CDU–CSU and SPD have historically dominated German politics, other parties have increased their support in recent years. Parties do not face undue restrictions on registration or operation. Under electoral laws that, for historical reasons, are intended to restrict the far-left and far-right, a party must receive either 5 percent of the vote or win at least three constituency seats directly to gain representation in the parliament. The constitution makes it possible to ban political parties, although a party must be judged to pose a threat to democracy for a ban to be legal, and no party has been successfully banned since 1956.

Support for the AfD has risen in recent years as the party has moved further to the radical right. While its popularity has shaken the German political system, most parties oppose the AfD and eschew coalitions that include it.

Opposition parties in Germany have a realistic opportunity to increase their support and gain power through elections.

The German government is democratically accountable to the voters, who are free to throw their support behind their preferred candidates and parties without undue influence.

The constitution gives all citizens 18 and older the right to vote, to stand for election, and to hold public office. However, some groups are politically underrepresented. As of 2023, women hold only approximately 35 percent of Bundestag seats. Some 11 percent of Bundestag members are from immigrant backgrounds, having at least one parent born without German citizenship.

Naturalization rates are low, leading to large numbers of long-term residents who cannot vote in federal elections. About 8.7 million foreign-born permanent residents were unable to vote in the 2021 federal elections, due in part to restrictive citizenship and voting laws.

Democratically elected representatives decide and implement policy without undue interference.

While Germany generally maintains strong and effective corruption safeguards, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) has criticized the country for its opaque party-financing regime and for a lack of lobbying regulations. To increase transparency, the former SPD and CDU–CSU coalition government introduced a lobby registry, requiring individuals representing interest groups to register before contacting officials in the federal government. Amendments to the Lobbying Register Act passed in October 2023, intended to increase transparency, will enter into force in 2024.

Investigations into the so-called Cum-Ex scandal—a share-lending scheme in which participants fraudulently obtained tax rebates, resulting in the theft of at least 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion) from the state between 2001 and 2016—continued in 2023. Chancellor Scholz has also been accused of having ties to the scandal. In 2022, Scholz appeared before a parliamentary committee in Hamburg to answer questions about allegations that, while mayor of Hamburg in 2016–17, he colluded with the owners of a large bank in the city to help them avoid paying back approximately 47 million euros ($48 million) in refunded taxes. Although Scholz has denied any wrongdoing, opposition investigations into his alleged involvement in the scandal continued in 2023.

Germany is obligated to enhance legal protections for whistleblowers under an EU directive issued in 2019. The German Whistleblower Protection Act, passed by the Bundestag in December 2022, entered into force in July 2023.

In 2022, the government announced a range of new initiatives intended to combat the relatively high levels of financial crime in Germany, including the creation of a new federal financial crime agency. The new Federal Office to Combat Financial Crime (BBF) is set to begin work in January 2024.

The government is held accountable for its performance through open parliamentary debates. In 2018, the government introduced question time, in which the chancellor answers questions from the parliament three times per year. However, transparency is limited by an overburdened bureaucracy and inconsistent state-level standards.

Freedom of expression is enshrined in the constitution, and the media are largely free and independent. Hate speech, such as racist agitation or antisemitism, is punishable by law. It is illegal to advocate for Nazism, deny the Holocaust, or glorify the ideology of Hitler.

Journalists sometimes face harassment and abuse, especially via social media, as well as physical attacks when reporting on right-wing demonstrations.

While press freedom in Germany remains robust, it has faced obstacles in recent years, including decreasing media pluralism. The privacy of communications between journalists and their sources has been affected by surveillance provisions in the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) Act, ruled unconstitutional in 2020. Though a revised bill was passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat in 2021, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says the bill still offers insufficient protections for journalists.

Freedom of belief is legally protected. However, eight states have passed laws prohibiting schoolteachers from wearing headscarves, while Berlin and the state of Hesse have adopted legislation banning headscarves for civil servants.

Antisemitism in Germany has been on the rise in recent years. The Ministry of the Interior recorded more than 960 criminal offenses against Jewish individuals and organizations in the first six months of 2023, though the number of unreported cases was likely many times higher. Following the October 2023 terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent onset of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the government-funded Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAD) registered a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Germany.

Islamophobia also remains a concern. German police recorded at least 258 politically motivated attacks against Muslim individuals and institutions in the first six months of 2023.

Academic freedom is generally respected, though legal prohibitions on extremist speech are enforceable in educational settings.

Private discussion and internet access are generally unrestricted, but recent developments have prompted concern about government surveillance, especially regarding the possible use of spyware to surveil encrypted online messaging services like WhatsApp.

In 2021, the government passed legislation allowing the federal police and intelligence services to surveil encrypted online messaging services using spyware. Critics have called the legislation unconstitutional, and several German media rights organizations have filed lawsuits asking the courts to prevent the intelligence services from secretly surveilling the private communications of individuals who are not suspected of criminal activity. In 2022, the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) ruled that parts of a Bavarian law granting extensive surveillance powers to the domestic intelligence services in that state were unconstitutional in their scope. The ruling will require the government to undertake reforms of similar laws nationwide.

Watchdogs continue to express concern about a controversial 2015 data-retention law that requires telecommunication companies to store users’ telephone and internet data for 10 weeks. Following a 2022 ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), and a similar ruling of the German Federal Administrative Court in September 2023, the government pledged to abolish the current data-retention law.

The right to peaceful assembly is enshrined in the constitution and is generally respected in practice, except in the case of outlawed groups, such as those advocating Nazism or opposing democratic order.

Several large protests took place in Germany during 2023, including widespread demonstrations against rising energy prices, growing inflation, and cost of living increases. Although most demonstrations were permitted to proceed without undue interference from the authorities, pro-Palestinian protests were widely banned, especially following the October attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas in Israel. Authorities preemptively and arbitrarily banned a number of pro-Palestinian protests based on nonspecific concerns that the protests may incite violence, hate speech, and antisemitic activity. Some pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrators were forcibly dispersed by police in October and November; though protests were largely peaceful, there were some reports of violence among both protesters and police and hundreds of protesters were detained in mass arrests. The authorities’ banning of pro-Palestinian protests has faced significant criticism from human rights defenders, who have called the bans disproportionate and discriminatory, and say they have unduly curtailed the rights to free expression and assembly.

Score Change: The score declined from 4 to 3 because following the onset of the Israel-Hamas war in October, authorities across Germany issued arbitrary bans and other restrictions on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, dispersing, arresting, and fining hundreds of demonstrators based on nonspecific concerns that the protests may incite violence and antisemitic sentiment.

Germany has a vibrant sphere of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which operate freely. In 2020, the parliament passed a revised tax law that explicitly allowed more NGOs operating in areas including climate change and LGBT+ issues to claim tax-exempt status.

Trade unions, farmers’ groups, and business confederations are generally free to organize, and play an important role in shaping Germany’s economic model.

The judiciary is independent, and generally enforces the rights provided by Germany’s laws and constitution.

The rule of law prevails in Germany. Civil and criminal matters are treated according to legal provisions and with due process. However, under “preventive detention” practices, those convicted of certain violent crimes can be detained after serving their full sentence if they are deemed to pose a danger to the public.

The professionalism of law-enforcement officers has come into question following the 2018 discovery of a neo-Nazi network within the Frankfurt police. Since then, police in several cities and states have been accused of espousing extremist and discriminatory sentiments. Investigations into right-wing extremism in German police forces continued in 2023.

Politically motivated crimes against public officials and politicians have increased in recent years. The political establishment was notably shaken by the 2019 murder of Hesse politician Walter Lübcke at the hands of a far-right extremist. In 2022, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) registered 4,043 politically motivated violent crimes, compared to 3,889 in 2021, and the number of hate crimes recorded by the Ministry of the Interior rose from 10,501 cases in 2021 to 11,520 in 2022.

Attacks on refugees and refugee housing continued to decline from a peak of 3,500 in 2016. In the first nine months of 2023, authorities registered 1,515 attacks on refugees, asylum seekers, and refugee housing.

In December 2022, German security services conducted raids in more than 150 locations across the country and arrested 25 people affiliated with the so-called Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, a far-right group accused of plotting to violently overthrow the government. Investigations into the movement remained ongoing during 2023, and raids targeting its members continued throughout the year.

In September, the Ministry of the Interior banned two far-right racist groups; police subsequently conducted raids on suspected group members in 12 out of 16 states.

The constitution guarantees equality and prohibits discrimination based on origin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age, or sexual orientation. However, several obstacles stand in the way of equal treatment of all segments of the population. Race-based discrimination is commonplace, including continued discrimination against Roma and Sinti people.

Women’s rights are protected under antidiscrimination laws. However, women face a gender-based pay gap—earning on average 18 percent less per hour than men as of 2022—while men are likelier to hold full-time employment. The differences were significantly higher in West Germany than in East Germany.

More than one million Ukrainian refugees entered Germany following the Russian military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Refugees and asylum seekers are eligible to receive government services, though in practice such services, including housing and employment support, can be difficult to access. Societal discrimination against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers is common.

In August 2023, the government introduced a new “self-determination law” that would ease regulations restricting the ability of individuals to change their legal name and gender; the reforms remained under debate in the parliament at year’s end.

Freedom of movement is legally protected and generally respected, although the refugee crisis and security concerns related to activity by the Islamic State (IS) militant group have led to some restrictions on travel. In 2015, the government introduced legislation allowing the confiscation of identity documents from German citizens suspected of terrorism to prevent them from traveling abroad, particularly to Iraq and Syria.

The rights to own property and engage in commercial activity are respected.

The government generally does not restrict social freedoms.

Adoption and tax legislation passed in 2014 gave equal rights to same-sex couples in these areas. The government legalized same-sex marriage in 2017.

In 2022, the Bundestag voted to abolish a Nazi-era law banning doctors from providing information on abortion services.

According to both the BKA and the US State Department’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report, migrants from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia are persistently targeted for sex trafficking and forced labor, and ethnic Roma are notably vulnerable to sex trafficking and to other forms of sex work. Germany has seen an increase in prosecutions and convictions of suspected traffickers in recent years.