Germany’s government coalition has collapsed in dramatic fashion after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Minister of Finance Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats in a late-night move following a marathon of crisis meetings.
The three remaining ministers of the Free Democrats resigned in response, leading to the downfall of the government coalition. Scholz is expected to lead the country with a minority government, but the opposition is calling for an immediate no-confidence vote.
However, early yesterday, Minister of Transport Volker Wissing from the Free Democrats unexpectedly took back last night’s resignation and told reporters that after talking to Scholz, he had decided to stay on as minister and leave the party instead.
Photo: Reuters
Lindner received his certificate of dismissal from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier yesterday afternoon. The German Press Agency reported that Jorg Kukies, an economic adviser to Scholz, would become the next finance minister.
Scholz announced late on Wednesday that he would seek a vote of confidence on Jan. 15, which he said might lead to an early election as soon as March — which otherwise would have been due in September next year.
Scholz had accused Lindner of breaching his trust and publicly calling for a fundamentally different economic policy, including what Scholz said would be tax cuts worth billions for a few top earners while at the same time cutting pensions for all retirees.
“That is not decent,” Scholz said.
Scholz’s left-leaning Social Democrats would now effectively lead a minority government with the remaining coalition partner, the environmentalist Greens.
The chancellor announced late on Wednesday that he would reach out to the leader of the biggest opposition leader in parliament, Friedrich Merz from the center-right Christian Democratic Union, to confer on possible ways of strengthening the economy and defense, and passing important legislation through parliament.
However, Merz yesterday rejected Scholz’s plan to wait to hold a vote of confidence until January.
“The coalition no longer has a majority in the German Bundestag, and we therefore call on the chancellor … to call a vote of confidence immediately, or at the latest by the beginning of next week,” he said.
“We simply cannot afford to have a government without a majority in Germany for several months now, and then campaign for several more months, and then possibly conduct coalition negotiations for several weeks,” he added.
Since Scholz’s government does not have a majority in parliament any longer, he would likely lose the vote.
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