After the most talked-about German federal election in a generation, the Conservative CDU-CSU Union will spend the coming weeks working out who it can invite to partner with it in a governing coalition. The medtech industry will keep a keen eye on the negotiations.
It is expected that the new Bundestag could be constituted in late March and a new federal government formed anytime after late April/May. On that timetable, legislative processes would be able to recommence in early summer. However, there is potential for a more protracted process.
The coalition agreement to follow would set out the Union-led government’s post-election ambitions, including in the areas of digital and healthcare transformation. Early speculation on WDR5 radio as the polls closed at 6pm CET was of a Union-SPD (“Grand”) coalition mustering enough seats to govern in the 630-seat Bundestag.
Tariffs To The Fore
Recent months have seen the medtech industry call for more government support to make Germany a better long-term prospect for medtech inward investment, including fast-tracking for innovation.
Industry associations are fearful of medtech businesses following the trend seen in the pharma industry, where companies have transferred activities out of Germany.
An early task for the new administration will be to take a position on US tariffs, including answering the medtech industry’s concerns about the effect of such tariffs on medtech supply chains. Industry association BVMed has written to the federal chancellery demanding that medtech be kept outside any planned US tariffs.
BVMed chief executive Marc-Pierre Möll argued that, as medtech supply chains function across global networks, tariffs would cut patient access to health-critical products. US medtech trade association AdvaMed has also spoken in favor of an exemption, BVMed reported.
“Free and unimpeded goods trade in medtech is essential, and we call on the federal government to pursue, at European level, a new free trade agreement with the US,” Möll wrote in his letter.
German (and EU) medtech products are not directly affected by US tariffs, as the situation stands. But they would be, indirectly, should for instance, materials/parts from German-owned production facilities in Mexico need to be exported to the US.
Fighting For The Healthcare Vote
Pre-election analysis from EuroNews showed that the Union’s healthcare manifesto majored on prevention, improving inpatient and ambulatory care provision in rural zones and emergency care.
The CDU-CSU has promised to exploit the power of data and the potential of the new Patient Record (ePA), and to integrate artificial intelligence tools into healthcare more rapidly. These aims were shared by the center-left SPD. Exit polls on 23 February gave the CDU-CSU 29% of the vote.
The right-wing AfD (polling over 20%) expressed opposition to a central database of medical treatment, in a bid to safeguard the security of patients’ data. The other parties say they will refuse to work with the AfD, now the country’s second largest political force and the biggest in east Germany.
The Union parties said they would let the federal states continue to plan their healthcare delivery, mindful of former SPD health minister Karl Lauterbach’s recently-enacted Hospital Reform act (Krankenhausreform). The Union has promised to “correct” elements the reform.
The Union’s deputy leader is Jens Spahn, the health minister in last CDU-led coalition.
The medtech industry’s position expressed to Medtech Insight at Medica in November 2024 was that Union policies are usually best suited to business growth.
For its part, the SPD wants to rekindle ideas about a citizens’ insurance system, which would be increasingly tax-funded and would entail the abolition of capital-funded private health insurance. This would level up waiting times for treatment and the range of care available for all citizens, said the party, which polled a post-war low vote of just over 16%.
The Green Party was in favor of creating better health system preparedness for epidemics, catastrophes and military threats. It also called for a federal-state pact on measures to improve mental health. However, polling just 13.5%, it cannot form a bilateral coalition with the Union parties alone.
Exit polls showed the Liberal FDP trailing below the threshold of 5% of the vote share required to assign MPs in the Bundestag. FDP leader Christian Lindner, architect of the “traffic light” coalition’s collapse in November, withdrew from politics after his party’s poor result.
Biggest loser on the night was SPD leader Olaf Scholz, who also withdrew from leading his party and said on 24 February he would play no part in coalition negotiations.
The left-wing Die Linke party garnered 8.5%, an uptick from 2021.