Germany's governing coalition collapses: why and what now?
Germany's three-party "traffic light" coalition has come to an end. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced on Wednesday that he would dismiss Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), saying: "He has broken my trust too often". Meanwhile Lindner has accused Scholz of failing to recognise the need for the fundamental changes in economic policy that he recently proposed. Scholz said he plans to hold a vote of confidence in January to pave the way for snap elections. The opposition wants a quicker pace.
In choppy waters
The Spectator worries:
“What comes next remains far from clear. With the discussions on the budget breaking down and the FDP out of the coalition, Scholz has no parliamentary majority with which to pass a new economic programme. As such, Germany has no agreed economic direction for next year. While this is most likely to be a problem for whichever administration comes in next, in the interim period, Germany will be entering 2025's choppy waters economically unmoored.”
Scholz not a good leader
It would be unfair to pin all the blame on Lindner, Zeit Online emphasises:
“Scholz's traffic light coalition was so acrimonious and full of contradictions that many voters would have liked to see more leadership from the head of government. But Scholz rarely satisfied this requirement. And when he did speak up, what he said was so technocratic and complicated that it didn't really get through to people. In this way, Scholz himself created the vacuum that Lindner and other disgruntled coalition politicians took undue advantage of. Senior members of the Greens have also openly blamed Scholz's leadership style for the collapse of the traffic light coalition.”
Continuing as before would be worse
Although the timing was poor, ending the coalition is probably the lesser evil, writes the taz:
“The idea of the German chancellor having to run around the country's marketplaces trying to convince a few pensioners of the merits of social democracy while Trump is changing the world order with unforeseeable consequences for the entire West and for Ukraine, Israel and Palestine is absurd. But does that make the move towards snap elections wrong? True, the timing is awkward, and stability can sometimes be a value in itself. But a continuation of the traffic light coalition would have been even worse. After all, one takeaway from Trump's election victory is that centre parties that continue to muddle through don't stand a chance against right-wing populism in the long term.”