MONITORING (SW) – Germany’s three-way coalition has collapsed after three years, following a lengthy dispute over how to stop a multibillion-euro hole in next year’s budget, plunging Europe’s largest economy into a period of considerable uncertainty.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz of the SPD, sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, the FDP leader, after months of disagreement over how to deal with the gaping hole in Germany’s budget.
Scholz wants to boost spending by taking on more debt, citing the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lindner opposed this and insisted instead on an array of tax and spending cuts that the SPD and Greens said were impossible to accept as they would torpedo much of the government’s program.
At stake: welfare payments, climate emergency measures and support for Ukraine (Germany is its second biggest backer after the US).
Federal elections scheduled for next autumn are likely to be shifted forward by about six months, to March or April. Scholz has tabled a vote of confidence for 15 January but Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and favourite to take over the chancellery, is calling for it to take place as early as next week.
When the three-party coalition formed in 2021, it was widely believed that the alliance would be difficult to sustain, even in a country that mostly wanted to turn the page on the Angela Merkel era.
The opposition CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) conservative alliance is clearly leading the polls, which were last updated before the government’s collapse, with 30-34%. Behind them is the AfD (16-19%).
