After months of bitter internal strife, the German government collapsed on Wednesday night. Now one out of three parties has withdrawn, and Germany has a rare minority government. What is the background to the government crisis? Ever since the Social Democrats (SPD), the green and market-liberal Free Democrats (FDP) joined government in December 2021, it has been a difficult marriage. The so-called “traffic light coalition”, which has been named after the party colors in which the SPD is red, the Greens green and the FDP yellow, has argued about both economic and climate policy, and all have failed in the opinion polls. This has gone particularly hard beyond the FDP. They are now evenly below the blocking limit of five percent. Why is this happening now? What has happened now is that they have not been able to agree on how to distribute a tight state budget, and on how to revive Europe’s largest economy. Germany is now entering its second year of economic decline. The FDP, which until Wednesday evening had the finance minister, has wanted to cut taxes and fees to speed up the German economy. The other parties have been strongly against it. The FDP has also been against taking on more national debt. The German constitution limits the government’s ability to take on new debt and states that the structural budget deficit cannot exceed 0.35 percent. Christian Lindner (FDP) was fired as finance minister on Wednesday evening. Photo: JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP SPD, on the other hand, has wanted to lift the brakes on taking on more national debt, among other things to be able to give more support to Ukraine. On Wednesday, there was a crisis meeting between the government parties, and the meeting ended with Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) being fired. Since then, the other ministers from the FDP also withdrew from the government, except for the transport minister. Volker Wissing chooses to stay in the government, and instead withdraws from his party FDP. What happens next now? Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he will ask the cabinet question only on 15 January. There may then be new elections in March. Any new election must, among other things, be approved by the German president, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier says on Thursday that he is prepared to do this. The reason why Scholz wants to wait with the cabinet question is that the Bundestag can then use the time until Christmas to make more decisions that cannot wait. Chancellor Olaf Scholz Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP The leader of the Christian Democrats, Friedrich Merz, on the other hand, believes that the cabinet question against the German government should come no later than next week and calls for new elections in January. If all this trouble hadn’t happened, there really wouldn’t have been a federal election until September 2025. Why can’t the government just continue as a minority government? Majority governments are the tradition in post-war Germany. Since 1949, there have only been majority governments in the country. Minority governments are used as a frightening image, because they are associated with the interwar period, which was characterized by chaos and several short-lived minority governments. They are also seen as inefficient, because it means that the government has to constantly go back to the Bundestag, to ask them for support for their policies. This will especially be a nightmare when it comes to negotiations in the EU, where Germany is one of the most powerful countries. Has this happened before? Throughout history, new elections have been called in Germany three times before. In 1972 this happened under Willy Brandt, in 1983 under Helmut Kohl, and in 2005 under Gerhard Schröder. The new elections in 2005 also led to Angela Merkel becoming chancellor for the first time, and began her 16-year reign. Published 07.11.2024, at 13.40 Updated 07.11.2024, at 13.44
ttn-69
