The German parliament accepted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s invitation to withdraw its confidence in him and his government on Monday, clearing the way for the Feb. 23 early election necessitated by the collapse of his government.
Scholz’s three-party coalition fell apart last month after the pro-market Free Democrats quit in a row over debt, leaving his Social Democrats and the Greens without a parliamentary majority just when Germany faces a deepening economic crisis.
Under rules designed to prevent the instability that facilitated the rise of fascism in the 1930s, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can only dissolve parliament and call elections if the chancellor calls, and loses, a confidence vote.
Only 207 of the parliament’s 733 expressed confidence, while 394 withheld it.
“The motion has passed,” said parliament president Baerbel Bas.
Merz attacks Scholz’s record
The chancellor and his conservative challenger Friedrich Merz clashed angrily in a debate ahead of the vote, charging each other with incompetence and lack of vision.
Scholz, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), defended his record as a crisis leader who dealt with the economic and security emergency triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Given a second term, he said he would invest heavily in Germany’s creaking infrastructure, not make the spending cuts he said the conservatives wanted.
“Shortsightedness might save money in the short term, but the mortgage on our future is unaffordable,” said Scholz, who served four years as finance minister under a previous coalition with the conservatives before becoming chancellor in 2021.
Merz, from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party once led by Angela Merkel, told Scholz his spending plans would burden future generations and accused him of failing to deliver on promises of rearmament after the start of the Ukraine war.
“Taking on debt at the cost of the young generation, spending money — and you didn’t say the word ‘competitiveness’ once,” said Merz.
Neither leader mentioned Germany’s constitutional spending cap, a measure designed to ensure fiscal responsibility but which many economists blame for the fraying state of Germany’s infrastructure.
After Scholz loses Monday’s vote, he can request a dissolution of parliament from President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has already endorsed his timetable. Scholz will stay on as caretaker chancellor until a new government can be formed after the planned Feb. 23 election.
Far-right AfD
The CDU have a comfortable, albeit narrowing lead of more than 10 points over the SPD in most polls. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is slightly ahead of Scholz’s party, while the Greens are in fourth place.
The mainstream parties have refused to govern with the AfD, but its presence complicates the parliamentary arithmetic, making unwieldy three-way coalitions like Scholz’s more likely.
Meanwhile, Scholz has outlined a list of measures that could pass with opposition support before the election, including 11 billion euros ($16.45 billion Cdn) of tax cuts and an increase in child benefits already agreed on by former coalition partners.
Measures to tackle fiscal drag look less certain, while Merz said he would not back a Green proposal to cut energy prices, saying he wants a totally new energy policy.
Robert Habeck, the Greens’ chancellor candidate, said that stance was a worrying sign for German democracy, given the growing likelihood in a fractured political landscape that very different parties would have to work together in government.
“It’s very unlikely the next government will have it easier,” Habeck said. “It’s very unlikely the conservatives, the SPD or the Greens will get an absolute majority.”
The conservatives have hinted they could back measures to better protect the Constitutional Court from the machinations of a future populist or anti-democratic government and to extend a popular subsidized transport ticket.
The AfD’s leader Alice Weidel called for all Syrian refugees in Germany to be sent back following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government.