Chancellor Scholz dismisses Finance Minister Lindner

The traffic light coalition has apparently failed: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is firing Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the FDP, as a government spokesman in Berlin confirmed. Scholz wants to appear in front of the press in a few minutes.

The coalition crisis is worsening dramatically. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is dismissing Finance Minister Christian Lindner, as government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit announced in Berlin in the evening. At 9:15 p.m. Scholz will comment on this to the press in the Chancellery.

The SPD called its parliamentary group together for a meeting at 10:30 p.m.

Lindner Scholz (SPD) had previously proposed a new election for the Bundestag. Participants quoted Lindner as saying that the discussions showed that sufficient common ground could not be achieved in economic and financial policy. It is in the country’s interest to quickly regain stability and the ability to act.

Lindner struck Question of trust before

According to the information, Lindner suggested that the traffic light parties, as in 2005, should jointly aim for new elections at the beginning of 2025 as quickly as possible in order to enable a new government for Germany in an “orderly and dignified manner”. The FDP would be willing to jointly decide on the supplementary budget for 2024 and be part of a caretaker federal government.

The leaders of the SPD, Greens and FDP had previously discussed for two and a half hours to find ways out of the traffic light crisis. Essentially, it was about how the billion dollar hole in the 2025 budget can be plugged and the badly hit German economy can be brought back on track.

Lindner had proclaimed “Autumn of Decisions”.

Lindner announced the “autumn of decisions” for the coalition some time ago. By this he was primarily referring to the budget for next year, which was to be passed in the Bundestag on November 29th. He was also concerned with a strategy for how Germany should be led out of the economic crisis. He made suggestions that escalated the dispute in the coalition. In his concept for an economic turnaround, Lindner calls, among other things, for the final abolition of the solidarity surcharge, even for high earners, and a change of course in climate policy.

There was considerable resistance to such ideas from the SPD and the Greens. Habeck had also taken a step towards Lindner. On Monday he agreed to use the billions in funding released after the postponement of the construction of an Intel factory in Magdeburg to plug budget holes.