Germany will enter this Monday in a waiting time for an indefinite period of time, between motion of confidence to which you will submit Olaf Scholz to precipitate early elections and the formation of the next government. The longed for recovery of the first European power, now in recessionit will continue to delay. All this, in a complex moment for Europawith France immersed in its own crisis, Donald Trump returning to the White House and extreme right gaining ground in the EU.
Barring surprises, the vote of confidence to which Scholz submits with the intention of losing it will be followed by the dissolution of the Lower House or Bundestag in the following 21 days and the calling of elections, foreseeably on February 23. The favorite to win them is the conservative bloc (CDU-CSU) of Friedrich Merzto which the polls give a voting intention of 31%. The far-right follows Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 18%, one point more than Scholz’s Social Democrats and three above the Greens. The new leftist populism of Sahra Wagenknecht It is on the tightrope of 5%, the minimum percentage to obtain seats. The liberals, former allies of Scholz who precipitated the collapse of the tripartite, are predicted to have 4%.
With the AfD isolated from the rest of the parliamentary spectrum, everything points to a great coalition in the style of those that the conservative one led in three of her four legislatures Angela Merkel. But, as political scientist Julia Reuschenbach, a commentator very present in the German media, argued in a meeting with foreign correspondents, it is advisable not to rule out a re-election by Scholz. After all, he came to power in 2021 after winning against the odds at the polls. He now has little time to spare and his disadvantage compared to Merz is enormous. But they are moments of great volatilitywhere global or national shocks suddenly occur that seemed unthinkable and that can precipitate the change of the vote in one direction or another, recalls the political scientist. Whoever wins, it will be months until Germany has a government supported by the new correlation of forces emanating from the elections. These are some of the open fronts that you must attend to:
Germany closes 2024 in recession for the second consecutive year. A few months after its formation, in December 2021, the Scholz Executive was confronted, as a result of the invasion of ukrainewith the reality of a battered army after decades of cuts and the need to quickly get rid of the energy dependence on Russia. Deficits in its infrastructure and digitalization were revealed, inappropriate for a rich country and attributable to the austerity of the ‘era Angela Merkel‘.
Scholz has embarked on a race against time to present himself as the necessary leader in the face of fear of social cuts y job drain from leading sectors, such as automotive and the steel. There are several giants pointing to plant closures and thousands of layoffs, from Volkswagen a Ford y Thyssenkrupp. Both the social democrats of Scholz and the conservatives of Merz are committed to abolishing or reforming the debt brakeconstitutional mechanism that limits debt and that, according to most experts, is a ballast for investment reactivation. But this will depend not only on the next government, but also on whether its decision has the support of a two-thirds majority of the Chamber, if a constitutional reform is required.
Scholz refused to hand over his long-range missiles Taurus to Ukraine for months before the collapse of his coalition, recalls political scientist Reuschenbach. That he now reaffirms this position cannot be attributed to pure electoralism, no matter how much it is in line with the majority opinion of his compatriots. Especially in the east of the country, 50% of voters voted for parties against supplies to Ukraine, such as the AfD or Wagenknecht. In German media he is described as “pacifist chancellor“Merz and even the Greens urge that the Taurus be delivered to kyiv, just as the United Kingdom, United States or France.
For Ukraine, the Taurus are essential, due to their ability to reach targets at 500 kilometers. The issue is also stuck. Scholz rejects accusations of lack of commitment to the future of Ukraine and recalls that Germany is the second taxpayerafter the United States, to military aid to kyiv. Poland, the Baltic and Nordic countries, pillars of NATO’s eastern flank, have shown that they will not wait for months for a paradigm shift in Berlin. The Warsaw Government, led by the pro-European Donald Tuskhas been organizing meetings with these regional partners for weeks, in addition to the United Kingdom and France, but without Germany.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad has precipitated in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries the rush to activate the return, voluntary or not, of the more than one and a half million Syrian refugees who arrived in the European Union (EU) since 2011. Germany, with some 975,000 Syrians in its territory, has frozen the processing of nearly 47,000 applications pending resolution. But while the Scholz Executive appeals to caution and remember the uncertainty On the political future of Syria, both Friedrich Merz’s right and the ultras of the AfD compete with each other to accelerate its return. Proposals are launched from Merz’s conservative bloc to encourage the voluntary return with charter flights and a sort of ‘gift voucher’ of 1,000 euros; The AfD urges to start with the deportations and to suspend the right to asylum to avoid another “uncontrolled arrival”, like the one that in his opinion precipitated the decision of then Chancellor Merkel in 2015 to keep them open.
The Government recalls that a third of the Syrians welcomed in Germany are integrated into your labor market. It is noted that the public health It will collapse if the 6,000 Syrian doctors practicing in the country leave, in addition to the nearly 15,000 nurses or personnel dedicated to geriatric care.
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