Chancellor Olaf Scholz will trigger early elections on Monday, deliberately losing a confidence motion to end a coalition that collapsed a month ago and that few in Berlin have missed since.
After three years in office a long-running row over budgets and investments saw Scholz fire his liberal finance minister Christian Lindner. As liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader, Mr Lindner and his parliamentary allies will withhold their support for the chancellor in the Bundestag on Monday. The remaining coalition partners, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Mr Scholz and the Greens, are 43 seats short of a Bundestag majority.
It is only the sixth such confidence motion in postwar German political history. As a lesson from unstable interwar parliaments, the postwar West German constitution restricts options for dissolving parliaments prematurely.
After the failed confidence motion President Frank Walter Steinmeier can seek an alternative coalition majority – which seems unlikely – or dissolve parliament as expected for federal elections on February 23rd.
In current polls the governing centre-left SPD is on 17 per cent, in third place behind the far-right Alternative for Germany.
Asked on national radio whether he could imagine serving again as vice-chancellor, as he did to Angela Merkel, Mr Scholz replied: “I wouldn’t do that. I am fighting to become chancellor once again.”
After three difficult years in power, collapsing his coalition early appears to have helped, rather than harmed, the Scholz SPD. Since firing Mr Lindner the SPD has risen three points in polls and closed the gap to the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 22 to 14 points.
Three years and eight days after becoming chancellor Mr Scholz will use his last Bundestag address on Monday to defend his government’s record – matching higher spending on security with more generous welfare – and frame his party as the only guarantor of this spending balance in the future.
“When we had elections we didn’t know the largest country in Europe would attack the second largest, with all the challenges that had to be mastered as a result – but we managed it,” said Mr Scholz on national radio last Thursday. “I don’t think it would be right if more security comes at the cost of health, pensions.”
If re-elected the SPD is proposing a more creative approach to debt rules, off-balance sheet funds for infrastructure spending and support for Ukraine, the latter running at €20 billion this year.
Leading the polls with 31 per cent support, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is promising to revive Germany’s flatlining economy and rescue industrial production with lower energy costs, simpler bureaucracy, tax cuts and law-and-order measures.
Mr Merz described the chancellor’s exit as a “low point” in postwar German history. “He leaves behind the country in a deep crisis,” said Mr Merz at the weekend. “At EU level leaders are turning way from him.”
Last week in Kyiv, Mr Merz signalled greater flexibility than Mr Scholz for Ukraine on long-range weapons and to use German weapons to strike targets inside Russia, insisting this “would not mean Germany is a party to war” with Russia.
Though seen as more socially conservative than his CDU predecessor Angela Merkel, Mr Merz has signalled some fiscal flexibility to loosen Germany’s self-imposed debt brake in some cases.
With job cuts looming at almost all car companies in Germany, the country’s future in this sector will dominate the election debate. While the CDU is promising to defend petrol and diesel car production at EU level, the SPD is pushing for an EU-wide incentive programme for electric cars.
Economics will be top of most voters’ list of concerns. After treading water for five years the Ifo economics institute predicted Europe’s largest economy would shrink by -0.1 per cent this year, with minimal growth in 2025 of 0.4 per cent.
“It is not yet clear,” the Ifo added, “whether the current stagnation phase is a temporary weakness or a permanent and painful shift in the economy”.
With all eyes on a Scholz-Merz duel, political observers suggest there are few options for Mr Scholz to defend the chancellery against Mr Merz.
“The only chance for Scholz to gain is if Merz makes a big, fat mistake – which cannot be ruled out,” said Prof Klaus Schubert, political scientist at the University of Münster.
Four years ago, asked about the idea of a gay chancellor, Mr Merz said sexual orientation was not the public’s concern “provided it’s legal and doesn’t involve children”.
Based on polls – and reformed parliamentary rules – the new Bundestag will have around 100 fewer seats, but possibly a new political party. The left-conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is polling between 4 and 8 per cent – and falling.
Last week, in a political first, BSW ministers joined two eastern state governments. Dr Wagenknecht said her party was pulling in voters from all parties with a vow to “ensure the most important areas for people’s lives function again: school, health, retirement provision”.
Based on polls the FDP is still short of the 5 per cent required for Bundestag entry while the Greens, on 13 per cent, are wooing the CDU with talk of similar foreign policy and plans for a climate-friendly industrial transformation plan.
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