Germany, after , is moving towards early legislative elections, but it is not clear when they can be held. The date has unleashed a fight between the still chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the opposition, including the liberals who, until this week, were Scholz’s partners in the German tripartite together with the social democrats and environmentalists.
This Friday he showed himself open to agreeing on a more accelerated calendar than the one he initially contemplated, and which provided for a vote of confidence on January 15 and elections at the end of March. It is an outstretched hand in the face of criticism for leaving the leading European economy for more than four months with a minority government and with a reduced capacity to legislate and react to international crises.
“We must discuss the date calmly,” Scholz admitted in Budapest, where he was participating in a European summit. “It would be good if the democratic groups reached an agreement in the Bundestag on which laws can still be passed this year. “This agreement would answer the question about what is the right time for new elections.”
In a letter to the chancellor, the president of the Electoral Commission, Ruth Brand, has warned, however, of the “incalculable risks” that calling them hastily and with the Christmas holidays in the middle could entail for the logistical organization of the elections. Without the breakup of the coalition, the elections would have been held next September, at the end of the four-year term.
Scholz plans to address the federal Parliament on Wednesday, an occasion that he believes should serve to present the motion of confidence that would activate the electoral calendar. Instead of the end of March, Merz, the clear favorite in the polls to succeed Scholz, wants elections on January 19, just before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president of the United States. “Germany now needs a government with the capacity to act,” he says.
Announcing on Wednesday the dismissal of his Finance Minister, liberal leader Christian Lindner, and thus remaining in the minority, Scholz presented an electoral plan in three stages.
The first consists of adopting, before the Christmas parliamentary break, “non-postponable bills” to compensate for the effects of inflation or to revive the industry in crisis. To do this, the chancellor will need the cooperation of Merz, to whom he has also offered to cooperate on two issues that he considers a priority: the economy – Germany is experiencing its second straight year of recession and its powerful industry is losing competitiveness and facing possible restructuring – and the military budget and the war in Ukraine. On Thursday the two held a meeting, without results.
Without a majority government, the approval of the Budgets for 2025 is complicated. Scholz has replaced Lindner in the Ministry of Finance with one of his trusted advisors in the Chancellery: Jörg Kukies, former head of Goldman Sachs in Germany.
The second stage would open with the motion of confidence on January 15, the path provided for in the Constitution to allow the dissolution of the federal Parliament and early elections. The motion of confidence is a quite exceptional tool.
Without a parliamentary majority, it is foreseeable that Scholz will lose it and then, in accordance with Article 68 of the fundamental law, the federal president will have a period of 21 days to dissolve the Bundestag. And, once the Bundestag is dissolved, the elections will be held within 60 days, according to article 39. This is how the date of “the end of March, at the latest” that the chancellor cited in his speech is reached. .
Merz, in the lead
After the elections, a third stage would open, that of negotiations to form a coalition. Merz’s Christian Democrats lead the polls, but the fragmentation of the chamber and the strength of the extreme right – Alternative for Germany (AfD) could be the second or third parliamentary force after the elections – will complicate the formation of a majority. Negotiations could last until June, according to Jana Puglierin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Berlin.
“This means that Germany will not be able to play a leading role at the European level,” Puglieren says in an analysis note. “Although Germany has not distinguished itself in this area in the last three years, we will now see even less initiative, flexibility and predictability from Berlin.”
But it can also be seen in another way. Yes, the German paralysis will last until the summer. And, with Trump’s return to the White House in January and Germany in the midst of an economic and industrial crisis, these months may be politically considered lost.
But without the breakup of the Government and without the early elections, the so-called traffic light coalition (because of the red, green and yellow colors of its members) would have continued until the fall of 2025. And Scholz himself, in the speech in which he announced the Lindner’s dismissal, called him “selfish” and accused him of “betraying” his trust, said that “Germany quickly needs clarity.” to justify parliamentary dissolution.
The agony of traffic lightinstead of lasting for almost a year, as would have happened without Lindner’s ouster, will only last a few months. How many should become clear in a few days.
