After Germany’s government coalition collapsed in dramatic fashion when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats, Schulz said he would lead the country with a minority government, despite calls from opposition leaders on Thursday for early elections.
The chancellor said the minority government would be made up of the Social Democrats and the Green Party until early next year, even as the leader of the largest opposition bloc in parliament, Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democrats, called for an immediate rejection of the vote. Vote of confidence and new elections.
Schulz stressed again on Thursday that he did not want to call a vote of confidence before January 15.
“Citizens will soon have the opportunity to decide again how to move forward,” the Chancellor said, according to the German News Agency (DPA). “This is their right. Therefore, I will put a no-confidence vote in the Bundestag at the beginning of next year.”
A meeting with Merz and Schulz in the Chancellery on Thursday afternoon about a possible date for the next elections ended less than an hour later with Merz leaving without commenting on the talks.
Later on Thursday, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier handed sacked Finance Minister Lindner and two other FDP officials who resigned – Research Minister Bettina Stark-Fatsinger and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann – their certificates of dismissal.
Transport Minister Volker Vissing, also from the Free Democrats, said he decided after talks with Schulz to stay on and leave the party instead. Schultz asked him to add the Department of Justice to his portfolio.
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Steinmeier also appointed Jörg Köckes, Schulz’s economic advisor, as finance minister. Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir from the Green Party agreed to take over the Research Ministry.
Schulz announced late Wednesday that he would seek a vote of confidence on January 15, which he said could lead to early elections, perhaps next March. The vote was scheduled for next September.
After sacking his finance minister, the chancellor accused Lindner of violating his trust and publicly calling for a radically different economic policy, including what Scholz said would be billions in tax cuts for a few high-income earners while simultaneously cutting pensions for all retirees. .
“This is not appropriate,” Schultz said.
The chancellor hopes that his minority government – Schulz’s left-leaning Social Democrats with remaining coalition partner, the environmentalist Green Party – will gain support from Merz’s Christian Democrats in parliament in the coming weeks, to pass important legislation and close the €1 billion gap. In the 2025 budget.
However, Merz on Thursday strongly rejected Schulz’s plan to wait to hold a confidence vote until January.
Merz said: “The coalition no longer has a majority in the German Bundestag, so we call on the Chancellor… to call a vote of confidence immediately, or at the latest by the beginning of next week.”
“We simply cannot afford to have a government without a majority in Germany for several months now, then campaign for several more months, and then perhaps have coalition negotiations for several weeks,” Merz added.
Since Schulz’s government no longer has a majority in parliament, he is likely to lose the vote. In this scenario, the German president could dissolve parliament within 21 days, and then early elections could be held next January.
“During these 21 days, we will have enough time to see if there are any issues that we may have to decide together,” Merz said, offering his party’s cooperation with the minority government. “We are of course ready to hold talks… and we are also ready to take responsibility for our country.”
Achim Wambach of the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research doubted that a long period with a minority government would help the German economy get back on track.
“Germany’s problems are too great to bear political stagnation,” the analyst said.
“The government has set out to reconcile the shift toward climate neutrality with economic growth and social security,” Wambach added. “It did not live up to this claim. The economy is in recession and investments are not materializing.”
“This daunting task has been exacerbated by geo-economic tensions: wars in Europe and the Middle East as well as economically damaging interventions through tariffs and national support policies,” he added. The election of Donald Trump has exacerbated these problems. Europe must do more for its security, and will have to take into account increased tariffs.
The collapse of the coalition came after weeks of disagreements between the coalition partners over ways to boost the country’s faltering economy.
Lindner’s pro-business Free Democrats rejected tax increases or changes to Germany’s tough self-imposed limits on debt accumulation. Schulz’s Social Democrats and the Green Party wanted to see significant government investment and rejected the Free Democrats’ proposals to cut social welfare programmes.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
