The German chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, has just dismissed the finance minister, the liberal Christian Lindner, after the latter proposed an early election. A desperate solution given the breakdown of negotiations between the coalition parties regarding the last budgets of the legislature, and which leaves the Government on the brink of collapse.
“I have just asked the president to release the Minister of Finance from his duties. I am forced to take this step to avoid damage to our country,” Scholz explained in a speech to the nation, criticizing the “selfishness and irresponsibility” from Lindner, which has caused the breakdown of trust between the partners. “We cannot continue working together. I will not subject the country to behavior like this“, he declared. This movement puts an end to the tripartite complex between the Social Democrats and the Greens, natural partners, and the liberals of the FDP, traditional traveling companions of the Christian Democrats.
This weekend, a fiscal plan from the liberal leader was leaked, an 18-page document, in which he spoke of the need to “an economic change with a fundamental review of key policies“In this way, Lindner spoke of forgetting the stimulus funds to carry out a large program of tax cuts in some taxes such as personal income tax or corporations.
The FDP’s proposals were “unacceptable” to the Social Democrats, as explained by the ING bank in a comment this Monday, and their publication seemed more like an ultimatum: either the left wing partners of the coalition bowed to the liberal demands, or the Government could fall in a matter of days. AND Scholz has made his position clear: budgets needed to increase income and public investmentdo not cut it. An irreconcilable difference that has blown up the coalition
Scholz has announced that he will meet as soon as possible with the leader of the opposition, the Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, to explain the situation, and that he will call a motion of confidence in Parliament for next January 15. If you lose it, as is very likely to happen, The next elections would be held in March. The polls point to a very complex situation, with the liberals and the Left below the minimum of 5% to obtain representation and the ‘grand coalition’ between social democrats and Christian democrats practically the only way out.
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