High fuel and energy prices dominated the final debates ahead of the state election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Minister-President Manuela Schwesig (SPD) called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) on Friday, speaking on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin”, to introduce a fuel price cap quickly, while the AfD and BSW are calling for gas supplies from Russia. Rising costs are a central concern for people ahead of Sunday’s election.
Schwesig said her state was ready to support a model for lower fuel prices in the Bundesrat as early as next week. She said the many commuters, tradespeople and small and medium-sized businesses in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania urgently needed relief. As a model, Schwesig cited the fuel price cap used in Luxembourg. There, the Ministry of the Economy sets binding maximum prices for petrol, diesel and heating oil based on price developments on international markets. Schwesig called on Merz to implement what is also possible elsewhere in the European Union.
The AfD, meanwhile, wants to use Russian gas to reduce energy prices. AfD parliamentary group leader Enrico Schult, who is standing as his party’s lead candidate, said on “Morgenmagazin” that Russian gas had been significantly cheaper than the gas now supplied from the United States.
Schult called for the use of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was partially destroyed by explosions in 2022 and was never put into operation. His party wants to regard the pipeline “so to speak, also as a bargaining chip” to end the war in Ukraine. The aim would be to persuade Russia to enter peace negotiations.
Left Party lead candidate Simone Oldenburg, meanwhile, wants to improve the state’s strained budget situation by introducing a wealth tax. If the Left Party remains in government, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania would use the Bundesrat to support such a tax. “That would bring Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania €1.7 billion every year,” she said on ZDF. “It cannot always be the middle class that bears the burden, while multimillionaires do not.”
CDU lead candidate Daniel Peters called for a reduction in VAT on fuel prices. He said the price cap and excess-profit tax models proposed by the SPD were constitutionally questionable. “Anyone who really wants to lower prices has to address taxes and levies,” Peters said.
Peters, whose CDU is fighting to clear the five-percent threshold in the northeast, ruled out his party moving closer to the AfD. “It is absolutely clear for us that we will not work with the political fringes, with the radicals,” he said.
Green Party lead candidate Claudia Müller called for stronger public transport as a way of addressing mobility costs. “Mobility is a basic service. It must be affordable for everyone, including travelling back and forth,” Müller said. FDP lead candidate Jakob Schirmer called for making construction cheaper as an important boost for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. To achieve this, he said, the real estate transfer tax would have to be reduced.
Just before Sunday’s election, the SPD and AfD are closely matched in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In a ZDF poll published on Thursday, Schwesig’s SPD overtook the AfD, which had led for a long time, shortly before election day. According to the poll, the Social Democrats are on 37 percent, three percentage points higher than the previous week. The AfD stands at 36 percent, down one percentage point.
The Left Party, which is part of the governing coalition, loses one point to reach nine percent. The CDU also drops one point to six percent. The Greens remain at five percent and are therefore facing a struggle to return to the Schwerin state parliament. The FDP is not listed separately and would leave the state parliament. The BSW also remains below the five-percent threshold at four percent, unchanged from the previous poll.
For the BSW, Sabine Firnhaber, who is number two on the state party list, did not rule out talks with the AfD about a possible government after the election. “Exclusion is never the right way,” she said on ZDF.
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