On December 2, 1990, the first free all-German parliamentary elections in 58 years were held. Former West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, representing the Christian Democratic Union party, was elected Germany’s new chancellor. The following year Kohl helped negotiate the treaty that created the European Union (EU). Kohl was reelected in 1994, but his popularity declined throughout the 1990s. His efforts to integrate Germany into the EU led to the introduction of harsh fiscal measures in order to bring the country’s economy in line with those of other European countries. That effort was rewarded in May 1998, when Germany qualified for entry into the European economic and monetary union. (This allowed Germany to replace its national currency with the euro in 2002.) Kohl’s 16-year reign as chancellor came to an end, however, when the Social Democrats were victorious in national elections in September 1998.

The leader of the Social Democrats, Gerhard Schröder, became chancellor and formed a coalition government with the Greens. Schröder’s government focused on improving the sluggish economy and reducing the financial costs of the country’s robust social welfare programs. Germany began to phase out its use of nuclear energy, pledging to curtail it entirely by about 2025, a goal especially important to the Greens. Schröder sent German troops to Kosovo in 1999 and to Afghanistan in 2001 but was critical of U.S. policy toward Iraq. The latter position helped boost his personal popularity, and despite the country’s continuing economic problems, his Social Democrat/Green coalition narrowly won reelection in 2002. Schröder was a forceful and vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. His welfare program cuts, however, proved highly unpopular.

With Germany’s economy still worsening, elections were held a year early, in 2005. The Christian Democrats, led by Angela Merkel, won by a very small margin. After weeks of negotiations, they formed a “grand coalition” government with the Social Democrats, their largest opponent. Merkel became not only the first woman to hold the chancellorship but also the first former East German to do so. She was returned to office for a second term in 2009. This time, however, her party won just enough seats in the Bundestag to form a coalition with its traditional partners, and the Social Democrats became an opposition party.

Under Merkel the government took some modest steps to tackle economic and welfare system reform. The official retirement age, for example, was raised from 65 to 67. In 2006–07 the economy began to rebound. The overall growth increased, and the persistently high unemployment rate fell. In 2008–09, however, Germany was hard hit by the global financial crisis. The country’s exports dropped, and it entered a deep recession. Although the recession ended in the second half of 2009, the country still faced slow economic growth and a large public debt.

In other parts of Europe, public debt levels soared to exceptionally high levels. This created an economic problem in the EU called the euro-zone debt crisis. Germany took a leadership role in the handling of the crisis. To deal with the high debt levels, Merkel promoted measures such as government spending cuts and tax increases.

In foreign affairs, Germany pursued a closer relationship with the United States. Merkel was widely hailed for her mediation skills. She generally continued Germany’s strong promotion of European integration, though after the economic crisis tensions arose between Germany and the rest of the EU over economic policy. Nevertheless, Germany remained a leader in Europe, central to its stability and prosperity.

By the time of the 2013 federal elections, Merkel’s personal popularity was bolstered by strong economic numbers. The unemployment rate was the lowest since reunification. Merkel’s handling of the economy and her approach to the euro-zone debt crisis appeared popular with voters. In the 2013 parliamentary elections the CDU and CSU captured nearly 42 percent of the vote. They won almost an absolute majority of the seats. Merkel became the third chancellor in the post-World War II era to win three elections. However, her government’s junior partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), failed to reach the 5 percent threshold for representation for the first time in the postwar period. After more than two months of negotiations, Merkel formed a grand coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP).

In her third term, Merkel was faced with a severe refugee crisis. Huge numbers of refugees escaping conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere fled to Europe. Many of them chose to go to Germany, which was among the EU’s most prosperous countries. For humanitarian reasons, Merkel stated that Germany would welcome refugees in the face of the emergency. More than one million migrants entered the country in 2015. The number of new migrants strained public services, including the police and border guards. Merkel’s open-door refugee policy was deeply unpopular among many Germans. This was particularly true after a series of violent attacks in Germany in 2016.

During New Year’s celebrations in 2016, gangs of men attacked hundreds of women in Cologne and other German cities. Several of the attackers were migrants to Germany. The country was also the site of a pair of terrorist attacks in July 2016 carried out by migrants. In December of that year, a Tunisian migrant intentionally drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people.

A backlash against migrants led to street protests in Germany. In local and regional elections far-right political parties turned anti-immigrant feelings to their advantage. Alternative for Germany (AfD) was one such anti-immigrant party that met with new success. In the 2017 federal elections the AfD won about 13 percent of the vote. That was enough to secure the party seats in the parliament. It was the first time since World War II that Germany had a nationalist party serving in the parliament. On the other hand, Merkel’s CDU-CSU alliance received its lowest vote percentage in the postwar era. With about a third of the vote, however, it won the largest share of seats. Merkel was returned for a fourth term as chancellor.

Further evidence of waning support for the CDU-CSU came in 2018. In October the CSU turned in its worst performance in more than half a century in regional elections in Bavaria. The CDU suffered a similar setback in regional elections in Hesse later that month. Merkel subsequently announced that she would step down as chancellor at the end of her term in 2021. She also gave up her role as head of the CDU in late 2018. She was replaced in the CDU leader’s post by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who was widely thought to be Merkel’s preferred choice to succeed her as chancellor. Kramp-Karrenbauer, however, struggled to maintain party unity. Although the CDU had declared a ban on any alliances with the AfD, CDU delegates in Thuringia openly defied the ban by voting with the far-right party in the state election held there in February 2020. Uproar over the election led Kramp-Karrenbauer to step down as CDU leader. The post was later filled by Armin Laschet, another Merkel loyalist.

Germany, like other countries around the world, soon had to confront the outbreak of COVID-19, an illness caused by a coronavirus. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global pandemic. By that time COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in all 16 German federal states. Germany’s response to the public health crisis was initially hailed as a model for how to handle the pandemic. Lockdown measures and an effective strategy for testing and contact-tracing helped keep COVID-19-related deaths and infection rates relatively low during the pandemic’s early stages. Following a period during which lockdown measures were eased, however, a second wave of COVID-19 cases struck the country. Tougher lockdown restrictions were imposed before the second wave peaked in mid-January 2021. Merkel’s government faced strong criticism over the slow rollout of Germany’s vaccination program. A third wave of cases began in March, but infection rates declined by May as the vaccination campaign eventually gathered pace. A fourth wave began later in the year that consisted primarily of cases among unvaccinated Germans.

Having lost ground in the polls as the pandemic wore on, the CDU-CSU could not recover by the time the 2021 federal elections were held on September 26. Though Merkel actively campaigned for the CDU-CSU and Laschet, the alliance’s candidate for chancellor, the Social Democrats, led by finance minister Olaf Scholz, prevailed over the CDU-CSU to earn a narrow plurality of seats in parliament. The Greens also made notable gains, placing third with about 15 percent of the vote. The strong showing for the Greens reflected growing concern among Germans over climate change, particularly in the wake of catastrophic flooding in western Germany over the summer. Following the elections the Social Democrats began negotiations on forming a coalition government. In November the Social Democrats agreed to form a coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats. Merkel remained in office until Scholz was sworn in as the country’s new chancellor on December 8.