The German parliament on Monday accepted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s invitation to express no confidence in him and his government. This cleared the way for early elections on February 23, necessitated by the collapse of his government.
Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart last month after the pro-market Free Democrats withdrew following a debt row, leaving his Social Democrats and the Greens without a parliamentary majority just as Germany faces a deepening economic crisis.
Under rules intended to prevent the instability that enabled the rise of fascism in the 1930s, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can only dissolve parliament and call elections if the chancellor calls a vote of confidence and loses.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives at the lower house of the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, on December 16, 2024, to hear whether parliament will withdraw its vote of confidence. (Liesa Johannssen)
GERMANY SCHOLZ REJECTS CALL FOR VOTE OF NO TRUST AS COALITION GOVERNMENT FALLS
The debate that preceded the vote also led to serious pre-election campaigning, with party leaders trading bad-tempered barbs.
The chancellor and his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz, who according to surveys is likely to replace him, accused each other of incompetence and lack of vision.
Scholz, who will lead an interim government until a new one can be formed, defended his record as a crisis leader who had confronted the economic and security crisis caused by Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
If he were to get a second term, he said, he would invest heavily in it Germany’s creaking infrastructure instead of making the cuts he said the Conservatives wanted.
“Shortsightedness may save money in the short term, but the mortgage on our future is unaffordable,” said Scholz, who served as finance minister for four years under a previous coalition with the Conservatives before becoming chancellor in 2021.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks on the day of a confidence vote in the lower house of the Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, on December 16, 2024 (Axel Schmidt)
Merz told Scholz that his spending plans would be a burden on future generations and accused him of failing to keep promises of rearmament after the start of the war. Ukraine war.
“Taking on debt at the expense of the young generation, spending money – and you didn’t say the word ‘competitiveness’ once,” Merz said.
Neither mentioned the constitutional spending ceiling, a measure intended to ensure fiscal responsibility that many economists blame for the shaky state of Germany’s infrastructure.
Conservatives have a clear lead in opinion polls
The conservatives have a comfortable, albeit shrinking, lead of more than 10 points over the SPD in most polls. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is slightly ahead of Scholz’s party, while the Greens are in fourth place.
Mainstream parties have refused to govern with the AfD, but its presence complicates parliamentary arithmetic, making unwieldy coalitions more likely.
Germany’s Olaf Scholz has lost a confidence vote from the German parliament, paving the way for early elections to replace the chancellor. (Lisi Niesner)
Scholz has drawn up a list of measures that could be passed before the elections with opposition support, including $11 billion tax cuts and an increase in child benefits that former coalition partners have already agreed on.
The Conservatives have also hinted that they could support measures to better protect the Constitutional Court from the machinations of a future populist or anti-democratic government and to expand a popularly subsidized ticket.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Measures to ease unintended burdens on taxpayers could also be adopted if regional governments agree, but Merz rejected a Green proposal to cut energy prices and said he would make a total new energy policy.
Robert Habeck, chancellor candidate for the Greens, said this was a worrying sign for German democracy, given the increasing likelihood in a fractured political landscape that very different parties would have to govern together again.
“It is very unlikely that the next administration will have an easier time,” Habeck said.
AfD leader Alice Weidel called for the return of all Syrian refugees in Germany following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
