The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ha lost a vote of confidenceeffectively sanctioning the fine of his troubled government and putting Europe’s largest economy on the path to elections on February 23.
Scholz had called the vote, expecting to overcome one political crisis weeks after the collapse of his coalition. He asked the President on Monday 16 December Frank Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the legislature soon and call new elections.
Although the centre-left chancellor continues to serve as a deputy with a minority in parliament, the political turbulence they threaten months of stalemate until a new coalition government is formed. Scholz, 66, is far behind the conservative opposition leader in the polls Friedrich Merzwho leads former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
After more than three years in government, Scholz joined crisis when his composite three-party coalition collapsed on November 6the same day Donald Trump was re-elected to the White House. The political turbulence has hit Germany, which is struggling to revive aeconomy in difficultyput to the test by high energy prices and fierce Chinese competition. Berlin is also facing important geopolitical challenges in the confrontation with Russia over the war in Ukraine and at a time when Trump’s imminent return increases uncertainty about NATO and trade relations.
Early elections: Merz challenges Scholz amid economic and geopolitical tensions
These threats were at the center of a heated debate between Scholz, Merz and other party leaders ahead of the vote in the Lower House, where Scholz won 207 votes in favor to 394 votes against, with 116 abstentions.
After Scholz outlined his massive plans investments for security, economics and welfare, Merz asked why he had not adopted them in the past, asking: “Was he on another planet?”. Scholz argued that his government had increased spending on the armed forces which previous CDU-led governments had left “in a deplorable state”. “The time has come to invest forcefully and decisively in Germany,” Scholz said, warning that Russia’s war in Ukraine “is a highly armed nuclear power waging war in Europe just a two-hour flight away.”
But Merz replied that Scholz left the country in “one of the most major economic crises of the post-war period”. “You had your chance, but you didn’t take advantage of it… You, Mr. Scholz, do not deserve trust,” accused Merz.
Merza former business lawyer who has never held a government position, has criticized the alliance heterogeneous between the Chancellor’s Social Democrats (SPD), the left-wing Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). The coalition’s disagreements over fiscal and economic issues exploded when Scholz fired rebellious FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner on November 6.
On Monday, December 16, Scholz attacked again Lindner for the “weeks-long sabotage” that imploded the alliance and damaged “the reputation of democracy” itself. There FDP leakage Lindner left Scholz leading a minority government with the Greens, hobbled and unable to pass major legislation or a new budget.
Berlin’s problems occur while the FranceGermany’s main partner in the EU, is also trapped in one government crisis.
Germany at the crossroads
The German politics of the post-war it has long been stable and dominated by the two large parties, the CDU-CSU alliance and the SPD, with the small FDP often holding the balance.
I Verdi emerged in the 1980s, but the political landscape was further fragmented by the rise of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), a shock for a country whose dark history of the Second World War had long made right-wing extremist parties taboo. The AfD has grown over the past decade from a Eurosceptic fringe to a major political force when it protested against Merkel’s open-door policy for migrants, and now has around 18% of the vote.
While other parties have pledged to create a “cordon of non-cooperation” with the AfD, some have adopted its anti-immigration rhetoric. After the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, some CDU lawmakers were quick to demand that the estimated one million Syrian refugees in Germany they returned to their country of origin.
Political scientist Claire Demesmay of Sciences Po Paris said that Germany is now in a broad redefinition process which “fuels fears within society which are reflected in the political sphere”. “We can see a more tense political debate than a few years ago. We have a Germany grappling with profound doubts.”
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