German government is hanging on by a thread, ‘coalition is on fire’

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  Charlotte Waajers

  journalist from Germany

While the world is watching the American elections, the German government is struggling alone. It goes around every langerbut with a document released on Friday, the Liberals are now putting the ax to the roots of the coalition. “The coalition is on fire,” said the chairman of the Social Democrats.

To keep the government together, Chancellor Scholz (SPD) is holding emergency meetings until Wednesday night. In discussions with Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Grünen), it should be clear whether the coalition between these three parties still has a future . And could elections come earlier than expected.

The cause of the crisis is a document in which Lindner, on behalf of his party, explains liberal plans to stimulate the German economy. It is not surprising that the Minister of Finance is thinking about this. The economy is declining, and the government must come up with a plan soon to fill the billion-dollar gap in next year’s budget.

What stands out is the content. In the 18-page a document There are plans that fundamentally contradict the principles of the other two government parties. Such as eliminating the ‘solidarity contribution’ that high earners in Germany now pay and reducing taxes and other social assistance. He also wants to scrap subsidies for sustainability, and Germany should go further to become climate neutral.

It is very unlikely that the Greens and the Social Democrats want to cooperate in this. The chairman of the SPD, Lars Klingbeil, says that he is grateful for all the proposals, but also that his party will not cooperate with a plan that makes the rich richer and does not reduce the burden on the middle class. “Lindner has proposed these types of plans 500 times and we’ve rejected them 500 times,” Klingbeil said.

“The FDP produces a ‘position paper’ every month,” sneers Greens group leader Katharina Dröge. “That is possible, but the coalition cannot deal with that every time. Instead, we need a Minister of Finance who will do his job and close the billion-dollar hole in the budget.”

Outside the FDP, they see the liberals’ wish list in Berlin as largely deliberate. No one believes the document was leaked by accident. It is suspected that Lindner wants to encourage Scholz to quit the cabinet, so that he will be responsible for this. The opposition Christian Democrats have renamed the piece ‘divorce papers’.

In fact, new elections are not scheduled until September next year. The current opinion polls are not going well for Scholz’s neutral government: the three parties would lose a lot as they are now. Also Lindner’s FDP, may not even reach the electoral stage.

Lindner adviser Lars Feld explains how the party stands to gain from a premature cabinet collapse interview with Handelsblatt. “The FDP has a dilemma. With an early end to the coalition, there is a risk that it will not reach the electoral stage in early elections. But if the FDP continues to support the wrong economic policies until next year, the polls will not look better FDP will completely fly out of the Bundestag. “

Since the FDP sees the document as a package of much-needed measures to save the German economy, it will be difficult for the party to stay in government if the other parties do not accept much of it. It is not clear whether the Greens and the SPD would want to continue as a minority government. For decisions that require a majority in parliament, it may be difficult to find support from other parties. So far, they have been very much against the neutral government.

“Coalitions are sometimes challenging,” Chancellor Scholz wrote last night

The collapse of a government and early elections are very unusual in Germany. The last time was in 2005, when SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder himself threatened the survival of the government after disappointing state elections by proposing the ‘Vertrauensfrage’ in parliament.

Early elections have not taken place because a party has never left government in the 75-year history of the Federal Republic.