The “traffic light coalition” was officially switched off in Germany, a month and a half after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, paving the way for the government’s collapse
Olaf Scholz this Monday became the first German chancellor in almost 20 years to fall following a parliamentary confidence motion. The collapse of the “traffic light coalition”, between Scholz’s SPD, the FDP liberals and the Greens, had been expected since the beginning of November, when the chancellor fired his finance minister, the liberal Christian Lindner, in order to approve a budget federal government for 2025 that provides, among others, more support from Berlin to Ukraine.
The possibility of a German government being subject to a vote of confidence was introduced into the country’s legislation after World War II and only four other chancellors fell following votes of this nature – Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder, with the fall of the latter, in 2005, paved the way for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first election.
Without the support of the Liberals, the coalition lost the parliamentary majority it held, meaning that Scholz was highly unlikely to survive this motion. At the moment, the SPD holds 207 seats in the Bundestag, along with 117 for the Greens, its ultimate political partner, below the 367 seats needed to survive the motion, out of a total of 733.
After three hours of debate and the coalition’s failure, Scholz is expected to propose today to the President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, that the federal Parliament be dissolved, paving the way for early elections. According to German media, it is not yet certain when Steinmeier will make this decision – according to the Constitution, he has 21 days to do so from the date on which the motion is debated and voted on. After that, and as stipulated in article 39, new elections must be called within 60 days.
Motion debate launches electoral campaign
In a speech to federal deputies, Scholz, who was Germany’s finance minister in Merkel’s last coalition until 2021, presented the early vote in February as an opportunity for voters to define a new route for the country, arguing that Elections represent a choice between a future of more investment or a future of austerity that CDU conservatives are committed to applying, he said.
The chancellor accused the opposition of preventing these investments necessary for Germany to overcome the biggest economic crisis in a generation and stressed that “a lack of vision can save money in the short term, but the mortgage on our future is unaffordable”. He also justified the decision to fire Lindner due to the intolerable “disunity” created by the FDP, highlighting that German politics needs moral maturityan old expression that means, loosely translated, “moral maturity”.
In his speech, Scholz also called for reforms to the constitutional mechanism known as the debt brake, which prevents the Government from taking on debt above 0.35% of GDP. “If there is a country in the world that can invest in the future, it is us”, defended the chancellor, raising campaign flags such as increasing the minimum wage to 15 euros/hour and reducing VAT on food from 7% to 5%. As for Berlin’s support for Kiev, Scholz said he was against the delivery of cruise missiles to Ukrainian forces, something proposed by his main rival, Friedrich Merz, from the CDU.
Robert Habeck, current Minister of Economy and leader of the Greens, assumed that the traffic light coalition was turned off because the coalition partners “were all irritated with each other” during the budget negotiations and even before them. Christian Lindner, leader of the liberals’ list, once again pointed the finger at Scholz: “He has shown again here today that he does not have the strength for fundamental changes, his responses do not in any way address the deep problems of inadequacy for economic competitiveness.”
Also in campaign mode, the leader of the CDU, likely winner of the next elections, blamed Chancellor Scholz for not having been able to lead the coalition successfully, saying that his mandate had tarnished Germany’s image in the European context. “The way he acted in the European Union is embarrassing,” said Friedrich Merz, and the coalition parties “leave the country in one of the biggest economic crises in post-war history.” Merz also highlighted that the SPD was part of federal governments in 22 of the last 26 years, questioning Scholz about why he had not implemented the promises made today.
During those decades, the conservative leader pointed out, Scholz was “General Secretary of the SPD, Minister of Labor of the SPD, Minister of Finance of the SPD and Federal Chancellor of the SPD — was he traveling to another planet?”
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD, far right), accused the coalition of what she calls , demanding that all Syrian refugees currently in the country be sent to their home country, and accused all parties of making the Germany a potential “target” of a nuclear attack by Russia for providing weapons and logistical support to Ukraine.
Soon after, Timo Chrupalla, another co-leader of the AfD, also took the podium to accuse the CDU of “copying” the far-right’s migration policy proposals, at a time when the leader of the conservatives has taken a tougher stance on border controls. and deportations compared to Merkel, the previous leader of the Christian Democratic union. “With whom do you want to implement the proposals?” Chrupalla asked Merz directly, in reference to his refusal to collude with the AfD.
In the final stretch of the debate, a former communist who this year founded a new far-left populist party bearing her name, , joined the chorus of criticism of the Scholz government, which she accuses of making “citizens’ lives palpably worse” since the beginning of his mandate. “Three years of decline and asking us for a four-year extension – that’s what I call having the nerve.”
What happens now?
Lindner’s resignation, which paved the way for the motion voted on today, took place on the other side of the Atlantic. The fall of the German chancellery takes place a month before Trump’s inauguration, at a time when his threat of a trade war with European partners remains latent, when the United States is the largest destination market for German exports, on which Europe’s largest economy is largely dependent.
The date for the early federal elections, originally scheduled for the end of September, has been set for several weeks – February 23, 2025 – and, to meet the set deadlines, Steinmeier has to formally dissolve the Bundestag before the Christmas holidays , that is, until December 27th. Following Lindner’s resignation, the head of state had already highlighted a month ago that “the country needs stable majorities and a government with the capacity to act”.
With elections on the horizon, party campaigns are already underway unofficially. Many have already released part of their electoral programs, with the expectation that the SPD, FDP and CDU/CSU, the latter the likely winner of the February elections, will publish the final versions of these programs tomorrow.
On Saturday, the leader of the Christian Democrats, Friedrich Merz, anticipated “one of the toughest election campaigns” in Germany’s modern history, in which the Social Democrats “have their backs against the wall” and when the stagnant economy needs to become more competitive, because “the competitiveness of our economy is the precondition for everything else”.
At this time, the CDU conservatives led by Merz are expected to win around 32% of the votes, followed by the Alternative for Germany (AfD, extreme right), with 18%, and the Social Democrats led by Scholz ( center-left), with 16% and Os Verdes, with 13%. The big losers of this motion of confidence in the coalition are the FDP liberals, seen as the main responsible for the political crisis installed in the largest European economy.
“It was total political irresponsibility, the liberals blocked everything, rejected any compromise, and now the polls put them below the minimum threshold of 5% of votes” to elect deputies to the Bundestag, Sophie Pornschlegel, from the Jacques Institute, pointed out to CNN in November Delors.
“There is a widespread perception among the electorate that the FDP was the major blocker in the current coalition, especially by preventing changes to the debt brake, which can be changed in special circumstances – and I would say that these are very special circumstances”, says Patrick Schröder , German analyst at Chatham House.
Friedrich Merz, the likely next chancellor of Germany, has already completely ruled out the possibility of forming a coalition with the AfD, so he will have to choose one of three alternatives: forming a coalition with the SPD, forming a coalition with The Greens or forming a coalition with both, judging by the polls at the time, which could still change by the end of February.
Analysts anticipate that the electoral campaign will be dominated by the economic and financial crisis that Germany is going through, as well as the war in Ukraine and the issue of migration that has fueled the rise of the far right in the country.
