German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday he was ready to negotiate a date for a vote of confidence in his government that could lead to early elections after the collapse of the ruling coalition sparked a political crisis in Berlin. TASR informs about it according to the DPA agency.
“We should discuss the date as calmly as possible,” Scholz said after an informal EU summit in Budapest. The opposition parties are demanding that the vote of confidence be held as early as next week and that the elections be announced as soon as possible.
The chancellor’s statements came after how several lawyers’ associations and the country’s chief electoral officer warned of the consequences of immediate elections.
On Wednesday, Scholz dismissed his finance minister Christian Lindner, whose liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) subsequently left the coalition. The chancellor proposed a vote of confidence in the now minority cabinet of his Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens in parliament on January 15, which would likely lead to an election in March.
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, whose Christian Democrats (CDU) are leading in the polls, accused Scholz of irresponsibility and delaying tactics. Scholz argues that a vote of confidence in January would allow urgent and important laws to be passed before parliament is dissolved. One of them is a project aimed at protecting the Constitutional Court from political influence, which gained support among deputies at the time of the rise of populist groups.
A group of German legal associations emphasized on Friday that this legislative proposal has “of such extraordinary importance for the constitutional state that all democratic parties must work to adopt this reform before the planned new elections”.
The Chancellor also received unexpected support from Election Commissioner Ruth Brandova. In the letter to Scholz, which was obtained by DPA, she writes about the “challenges and risks of early elections in January or February 2025”. According to her, they could undermine confidence in the integrity of elections.
According to German law, elections must be held 60 days after the dissolution of the Bundestag. Brandová said that if the parliament were dissolved before the Christmas period, there could be problems with the procurement of paper and printing services. Special security measures would also be needed in view of increased hybrid threats.
