Free Democratic Party

The Free Democratic Party (German: Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP, German pronunciation: [ɛfdeːˈpeː] ^ⓘ) is a liberal political party in Germany. The FDP was founded in 1948 by members of former liberal political parties in Germany before World War II, namely the German Democratic Party and the German People's Party. For most of the second half of the 20th century, when Germany was mainly a two-party country, particularly from 1961 to 1982, the FDP as third party determined the balance of power in the Bundestag. It has been a junior coalition partner to both the CDU/CSU (1949–1956, 1961–1966, 1982–1998, and 2009–2013) and Social Democratic Party (SPD; 1969–1982 and 2021–2024 in a short-lived three party coalition with the Greens).

After an all-time high result in 2009 and four years in government under Chancellor Merkel, with a flip-flop stance towards nuclear power, in the 2013 federal election, the FDP came up short of the 5 percent threshold to qualify for list representation, being left without representation in the Bundestag for the first time in its history. In the 2017 federal election, the FDP regained its representation in the Bundestag, receiving 10.6% of the vote. From the 2021 federal election to the 2024 German government crisis, the FDP was part of the governing Scholz cabinet in a "traffic light coalition" with the SPD and the Greens. In the 2025 federal election, the party again failed to win any directly elected seats and came up short of the 5 percent threshold to qualify for list representation, leaving the party with no seats in the Bundestag. Being left out of most state parliaments, in 2026 the FDP even lost their former stronghold Baden-Württemberg, and more elections are coming up in 2026.

Apart from a brief progressive and social liberal period in the 1970s (Freiburger Thesen), the FDP has traditionally been located in the centre-right of the political spectrum. Since the 1980s, the party, consistently with its ordoliberal tradition, has pushed economic liberalism and has aligned itself closely to the promotion of free markets and privatization. The FDP is a member of the Liberal International, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and Renew Europe.