Article
The AfD won the Mecklenburg election. Does that change anything for the German brigade in Lithuania?
Not in the near term, and the seat count shows why. The AfD took 32 of 71 seats, while the SPD, the Left and the Greens together hold 39, so the AfD does not form a government. Defence in Germany is an exclusive federal competence, not a state one, and the brigade's money and personnel decisions sit in Berlin. Something else did change: the AfD holds more than a third of the Landtag, which blocks amendments to the state constitution, and the chancellor's party fell out of that parliament altogether with 4.9 percent.
On 20 September two German states voted: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin. The AfD came first in Mecklenburg, the Left came first in Berlin. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's party fell in both, and in one of them it left the parliament entirely.
In Lithuania the first question after a result like this is usually the same one: does it touch the German brigade. This piece answers it with numbers, and the answer splits in two. One half is "no". The other half is "yes, but not where it looks".