Conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz told supporters that under his leadership, Germany would take responsibility in Europe, and that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be consigned to the political margins once more.

He will end his Christian Democrat party’s campaign with a rally in Munich, while his rivals will make a final appeal in a TV “speed-dating” programme with voters.

For months German politics has been paralysed by the collapse of the previous government.

Now, hopes have been raised across Europe that this vote will bring some certainty to the EU’s biggest democracy and its biggest economy, which has struggled to escape from lingering recession.

Nothing will change overnight. No party can govern without forming a coalition, and that will take weeks.

Reviving the economy has been one of the two big issues of the campaign; the other has been migration and security, thrust on Germany’s politicians by a series of deadly attacks since May 2024.

The cities of Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich have all suffered grievous attacks. A Spanish tourist was stabbed at the Holocaust memorial in the centre of Berlin on Friday night, although his wounds are not considered life-threatening.

All the alleged attackers were immigrants, and the AfD under Alice Weidel has advanced to about 20% in the polls with its nationalist, anti-immigration message.

She has appealed to younger voters on social media, and is far ahead in the race on TikTok, with 870,000 followers. She has also been buoyed by support from both billionaire Elon Musk and US Vice-President JD Vance, who has been accused of meddling in the German campaign.

The AfD talks of securing Germany’s borders and deporting migrants who came illegally and committed crimes. But she uses the word “remigration” which has also been linked to mass deportations.

In Solingen, where a Syrian was accused of stabbing to death three people last August, hundreds of people turned out on Friday night to speak out against the rise of the far right.

“We have a lot of friends who grew up in Germany whose parents did not,” said one woman called Natalie, 35. “We don’t want anybody to kick them out and we don’t want our borders closed.”

One man called Jochen held up a sign that read “Never Again is Now!”

There was a large police presence at the protest, and Friday night’s stabbing in Berlin has heightened security fears.

A police union spokesman has warned of a risk of attacks aimed at destabilising democracy.

All the mainstream parties have ruled out working with the AfD in government, but if it polls higher than 20% it could double its number of seats to 150 in the 630-seat parliament.

Merz’s most likely partner is Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, although probably without Scholz himself. The message from his centre-left SPD as the final day of campaigning began was that every vote counts, and if Germans wanted a strong government they needed a strong SPD.

The Social Democrats are languishing in third in the polls, but Scholz is pinning his hopes on an estimated one in five undecided voters who could make a big difference.

Friedrich Merz was in a relaxed and confident mood when he appeared on stage this week in front of 1,200 supporters in the tech-hub city of Darmstadt near Frankfurt. But his message was stark as he turned his thoughts to Donald Trump’s presidency.

One hand in his pocket and the other holding the microphone, he spoke of unprecedented times and a “tectonic shift in the world’s centres of power”.

“A political order is now crumbling. What we have become used to for decades is breaking down.” He was not even sure if the US would join Germany in celebrating the 70th year of its accession to Nato in the summer.

He castigated the outgoing government for failing to take a leading role on the international stage.

“The German government and chancellor must finally take on a leading role in Europe again. If I’m elected I will spend a significant part of my time keeping this European Union together.”

Germans have had almost nightly opportunities to see their political leaders thrash out the big issues in TV debates, and Alice Weidel has been in the thick of them, sharing the stage with both Merz and Scholz.

In the run-up to the vote she met Vice-President JD Vance, who castigated German politicians for raising a “firewall” against the far right and of ignoring “the will of the voters”.

That firewall – brandmauer in German – has held strong since the end of the war, although Merz himself was accused of breaking it when he relied on the support of the AfD last month in a motion on migration.

He has faced demonstrations ever since, and there was a noisy protest when he visited Darmstadt.

PhD student Annika, 29, held a Herz statt Merz banner – love instead of Merz. “He says he won’t do something with the far-right AfD, but his actions contradict what he says. I don’t trust him at all.”

Merz appears to have been stung by the outcry and has sought to reassure voters there will be “no tolerance, no minority government [with the AfD], nothing at all”.

What achievements could the French president boast? Was his emergency security summit a success?

What frustrates Europe’s detractors is there’s rarely a clear answer. Different European nations speak with different voices, though they share many values and goals.

But in the current climate of black-and-white thinking prevalent in Washington and Moscow, where the world is divided into the powerful and the weak, European nuance can count as weakness.

Under that unforgiving spotlight, Monday’s meeting failed.

Leaders had raised expectations. The summit dominated headlines as soon as it was called.

The head of the West’s defence alliance Nato, European Union chiefs and leaders of Europe’s most influential military nations scrambled together at speed.

They wanted to hijack Donald Trump’s attention. To impress him. To elbow themselves a seat at the negotiating table at the peace talks he plans with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to discuss the future of Ukraine.

Europe was – it still is – smarting at being sidelined.

Ukraine is a European nation. Its fate will impact the whole continent.

Depending how bullish President Putin emerges from any peace talks, Europe’s security services fear he could turn his attention to upending the sovereignty of other nations.

The Baltic states that neighbour Russia feel particularly exposed.

But leaders didn’t help their case on Monday.

Yes, they say they’ll spend more on their own defence, as Donald Trump demands. Despite domestic concerns about limited government budgets and a cost of living crisis.

The Paris meeting even discussed the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine to oversee an eventual ceasefire – unthinkable even a few weeks ago for Europe.

That’s what the US president wants.

But ultimately those leaders in Paris failed to deliver a strong, united, sum-it-up-in-a-line-tweet response, that might have made the impatient businessman-cum-US president sit up and really take notice.

The reasons for this are many, despite the sense of urgency in Europe about Ukraine and European security more broadly.

A number of Europe’s leaders are furious at feeling they have to dance to Donald Trump’s tune.

The frustration that poured out of the mouth of the normally phlegmatic German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was palpable when he left the Paris meeting.

“It is completely premature and a completely wrong time to have this discussion [on sending European troops to Ukraine] now. I’m even a little irritated by these debates.”

He insisted that there must be equal division between the US and Europe on responsibilities in Ukraine.

Scholz is likely to be out of a job soon. There are elections in Germany on Sunday, which he is widely expected to lose.

He’s had a couple of uncharacteristically emotional outbursts at home too of late, presumably under the strain.

Still, it’s important to note that he is far from alone amongst European leaders, who suspect Donald Trump is in a hurry to wash his hands of Ukraine and pivot his attention elsewhere. Perhaps China?

They worry too that the US president not only intends to deplete the defence umbrella his country has offered its European allies since the end of World War Two, but that Europe may now need to defend itself against him and his policies.

The tone the UK prime minister struck after the Paris meeting was in stark contrast to these darker European broodings.

He is openly keen to use the “special relationship” the UK hopes it still has with Washington as a bridge between Europe and the US.

One that Sir Keir Starmer is determined not to burn, telling voters at home that European security was in their national interest.

He appeared determinedly unfazed at Russia’s face-to-face preparation talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.

No date for that big-ticket summit between Trump and Putin has yet been set.

Sir Keir hopes to grab a window of opportunity to press Europe’s case when he heads to Washington for a meeting of his own with the US president next week.

The US must stay by its allies’ side, the prime minister has declared.

If it doesn’t, Europe’s leaders will have to keep meeting untill they can agree a way forward for Ukraine and their common security.

Should they fail again, long shadows over the stability of this continent will grow.

“There will only be peace if Ukraine’s sovereignty is secured,” he said on the second day of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“A dictated peace will therefore never find our support,” added Scholz, in a rebuke to United States President Donald Trump who recently held discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, without the participation of the Ukrainians.

The German leader, who faces a tough election at home next week, said Berlin will not accept “any solution” of the protracted conflict that only leads to a “decoupling” of European and US security.

“Only one person would benefit from this: President Putin,” he said.

His comments came as European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from the new US administration on Ukraine’s future.

Earlier this week, Trump announced he had held a phone call with Putin, during which the two leaders agreed to meet soon to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.

The American president and his top security and diplomatic officials also hinted that in order for the war to end Ukraine must accept most of Russia’s demands – including Kyiv giving up its Crimean territory taken by Moscow and abandoning its bid to join the NATO alliance.

Trump later assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he, too, would have a seat at the table for peace talks.

Zelenskyy  said on Saturday it would be “dangerous” if Trump met Putin before meeting him, and that Ukraine would never accept any peace deals reached behind its back or without Kyiv’s involvement, in an implicit message to the US president as he strives to end the war with Russia.

Zelenskyy also said he would only agree to meet in person with Putin after a common plan is negotiated with Trump. “A few days ago, President Trump told me about his conversation with Putin. Not once did he mention that America needs Europe at the table. That says a lot.”

On Saturday, Scholz said that to ensure Russia would not attack again if peace is reached, Kyiv’s backers “first of all” needed to build up Ukraine’s armed forces in the future.

“There will be a responsibility in the post-war times for Europe and for the United States and for the international partners and friends of Ukraine to make this happen,” he said.

Ramping up his desire for a more muscular and mighty Europe, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s three-year fight against an invading Russian army proved a foundation exists for the creation of a European army that has long been discussed among some continental leaders.

“I really believe that time has come. The armed forces of Europe must be created,” said Zelenskyy.

Meanwhile , Scholz rejected foreign interference in German elections after US Vice President JD Vance attacked how governments in Europe seek to counter bids for political influence by far-right groups such as Germany’s Alternative for Germany AfD.

Germany “will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy, in our elections. That is not appropriate – especially not among friends and allies,” he said after Vance’s criticism.

“We are absolutely clear that the extreme right should stay outside the political decision-making process and there would be no cooperation with them,” Scholz later told reporters.

“Never again fascism, never again racism, never again aggressive war. That is why an overwhelming majority in our country opposes anyone who glorifies or justifies criminal National Socialism,” Scholz said, referring to the ideology of Adolf Hitler’s 1933-45 Nazi regime.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot also defended European policies after Vance’s speech.

“Freedom of expression is guaranteed in Europe,” Barrot said on X, after Vance alleged it was “in retreat”. “Nobody is obliged to adopt our model, but nobody can impose theirs on us.”

On Friday, Vance launched a broadside against Europe and Germany in particular, accusing both of limiting free speech by excluding parties that voice strong concerns over immigration, including the far-right AfD. Vance later met AfD leader Alice Weidel.

Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats are currently third in the polls at about 15 percent before next week’s vote, behind AfD’s expected second-place finish at 20 percent and the conservative CDU/CSU bloc’s estimated 30 percent.

Sholz won the support of 207 lawmakers in the 733-seat lower house, or Bundestag, while 394 members voted against him and 116 abstained. That left him far short of the majority of 367 needed to win.The elections for a new parliament will take place on February 23.The governing coalition, which had consisted of three political parties, was shaken when Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner in November.Lindner’s pro-business Free Democrats then quit the coalition government, robbing Scholz of a majority in parliament.

Scholz centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens will continue running the country without parliamentary backing until a new government is formed.Monday’s move came after months of infighting over fiscal priorities and debt spending.

Earlier this month, a hung parliament in neighbouring France toppled the country’s prime minister with no confidence vote.The crisis in France prompted President Emanuel Macron to name centrist politician Francois Bayrou as new prime minister without triggering a new election. But it highlighted the intensifying political rifts in EU countries amid economic uncertainty and the war in Ukraine.

In Germany, Scholz – who previously served as mayor of Hamburg and finance minister before becoming the head of a new government in 2021 – accused the Free Democrats of wanting to block investment in the country.Seen as a continuity candidate when he took over from Angela Merkel three years ago, he hasframed next year’s election as an opportunity for voters to set a new course, casting the vote as achoice between a future of growth versus one of austerity.If he is given a second term, Scholz said he would invest heavily in Germany’s creaking infrastructure and would not make the spending cuts he said the conservatives want.Scholz and the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, who polls suggest is likely to be the next chancellor, clashed in a debate before Monday’s vote, accusing each other of incompetence.“Shortsightedness might save money in the short term, but the mortgage on our future is unaffordable,” Scholz told lawmakers.Merz told Scholz that his spending plans would burden future generations and accused the chancellor of failing to deliver on promises of rearmament since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The conservative leader has been a vocal backer of giving Ukraine German-made Taurus missiles, which could be used to strike targets inside Russia.Scholz, by contrast, has refused to supply them to Kyiv, suggesting that such moves could plunge Berlin into a fiercer conflict with with Moscow.Both Scholz and Merz are staunch supporters of Israel. Germany is one of the top suppliers of weapons to Israel, which has been accused by rights groups of carrying out a genocide in Gaza.

Ahead of the February vote, the conservatives have a comfortable, albeit narrowing lead of more than 10 percentage points over the SPD in most polls.The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is slightly ahead of Scholz’s party while the Greens are in fourth place.The mainstream parties have refused to govern with the AfD, but its presence complicates parliamentary politics, making unwieldy three-way coalitions like Scholz’s more likely.Meanwhile, the chancellor has outlined a list of urgent measures that he could pass before the elections, including 11 billion euros ($11.6bn) of tax cuts and an increase in child benefits.