Germany will hold early elections on February 23 after the breakdown of the government coalition, according to the date agreed by the parliamentary groups of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
The date must still be confirmed by the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who must dissolve Parliament after the chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, submits to a vote of confidence, foreseeably on December 16, which he will lose because he is in the minority. According to several German media such as Der Spiegel and the first public television channel ARD.
The government coalition broke up last week when the German chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz, dismissed his finance minister, the liberal leader Christian Lindner, in the midst of the serious crisis that had been brewing for months.
The viability of the so-called ‘traffic light coalition’ – made up of social democrats from the SPD, greens and liberals from the FDP – had already proven unsustainable since last September 1. That day the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia went to the polls. In the latter, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the elections with a historic result. In the first region, AfD was tenths away from being the most voted force. It was the first victory in Germany of a far-right party – which in the case of AfD, borders on neo-Nazism – in a regional election since World War II.
Finally, the clash between Scholz and Lindner occurred at a meeting of the Executive this Wednesday, in which representatives of the three parties participated and which should have put an end to the differences over next year’s federal budget. According to several German media reports shortly before his dismissal, Lindner had offered to call early elections and maintain the Government until then. The social democrat reacted by doubling down: approving an emergency federal budget or immediate termination.
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