Germans' trust in all political institutions has fallen to a new low, a survey by Forsa found. Figures are disastrous in comparison to last year's poll.

The latest survey by the Forsa polling group featuring catastrophic declines in political trust in Germany may have come as a severe blow to the German federal government.

Confidence in the federal chancellor has fallen steeply in one year. Compared to last year, 24 per cent fewer respondents said they had trust in social democrat Olaf Scholz, that is, barely one-third of the German population trusted the chancellor. The German federal government also scored rather badly, with only 34 per cent saying they trust the cabinet in general, a decrease of 22 per cent.

The Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, also suffered a massive loss of support in one year, with 37 per cent of the respondents saying they trusted the institution, which is a 13 per cent drop. Even confidence in the federal president – traditionally enjoying the highest level of trust among German politicians – declined by 12 per cent in 12 months.

A recent survey by the German Civil Service Federation also showed similarly dramatic results, revealing that only 29 per cent of Germans had retained trust in the state. Even the voters of the governing parties do not believe in the system’s ability to act, with 53 per cent of Social Democratic party voters, 52 per cent of Green party voters, and 80 per cent of Liberal supporters expressing distrust. The judiciary was among the biggest losers, dropping 15 percentage points in a five-year comparison. In September, it was at its lowest since the since the start of collecting such statistics.

Returning to the Forsa survey, the data also indicate that German residents trust political parties the least. Only 17 per cent said that they had confidence in parties, which constitutes a 7 per cent drop.

The situation is somewhat better in the case of state governments than on the federal level. 46 per cent of the people trust state cabinets, which is much higher than the figure for the federal government, but it still means that the majority of people distrusts state leaderships. 44 per cent of Germans trust mayors, and 43 per cent trust municipal administrations. Last year, these values ​​were twelve to nineteen points higher across the board.

Confidence in the European Union has also decreased further in Germany. Only 31 per cent of the respondents said that EU institutions are trustworthy, which is 7 per cent lower than last year.

There is a difference between the results in the eastern and the western part of the country. Confidence is especially low in the east, where even the federal president is trusted by only 53 per cent of the people. The same figure is 65 per cent in the west. A mere 20 per cent of the people in the east said they had confidence in the EU, with the same figure being 33 per cent in the western regions.