Sewing Warns Far-Right and Far-Left Gains Risk German Investment Appeal

Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing warned in a Bild interview published Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, that recent state election gains by the far-right AfD and the far-left Left Party pose a significant risk to Germany’s draw for foreign investors. The AfD nearly won an outright majority in Saxony-Anhalt and finished first in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania two weeks later; security services have classified it as extremist in certain regions. In Berlin, the Left Party secured a strong result while pledging to expropriate residential holdings of large property companies. Sewing told Bild: "This poses a significant risk to Germany, and it should not be played down." He said a foreign investor cannot be expected to separate a state government from Germany as a whole and that the view is understandable. On Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin he said the outcomes are "anything but conducive to economic growth" and "anything but investment-friendly." He called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to accelerate structural economic reforms, saying that is "the only response we have to the far-right and far-left extremists in this country."