One of Vladimir Putin’s geostrategic successes has been to devastate Germany without invading it militarily. The end of cheap energy from Russia, whose dependence the top German leaders favored – some out of naivety and others out of interest – to make their exports more competitive, has meant that in just five years Germany has gone from being considered the economic locomotive of the continent. to occupy the category of sick person in Europe. The economic decline, the result of a chain of strategic errors fostered by more ideological than practical conceptions about the future of the country (there is the incomprehensible closure of its nuclear power plants), has been joined by a political crisis that has broken the Executive born of the ‘traffic light coalition’ formed by socialists, greens and liberals. On Wednesday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz expelled the Finance Minister from his GovernmentChristian Lindner, leader of the liberals.
The breakup was marked by Scholz’s personal reproaches to Lindner: “He has betrayed my trust too many times… Serious government work is not possible under these conditions.” However, the underlying problem has a lot to do with Scholz’s inability to deliver Budgets acceptable to all members of the coalition. The lack of credibility of their public accounts has been a constant since the formation of the ‘traffic light coalition’. The Constitutional Court even rejected the general budgets of 2022 and 2023, because they incurred hidden debt, and those of 2024 are also in question. The definitive breakup was due Because for the preparation of the 2025 accounts, Scholz wanted to suspend the constitutional rule that slows the growth of public debt in order to be able to meet the increase in defense spending required by NATO and the war in Ukraine. This rule can only be invoked in very qualified cases and Lindner did not agree to do so now, as he later explained in the Reichstag.
But the conflict underlying this disagreement, which can be settled with a vote of confidence or an early call for elections, is much deeper than a difference of opinion between a Liberal minister and a Social Democratic chancellor on a constitutional provision; What is really at stake is how Germany will emerge from this crisis, which amounts to completely reinventing the country’s economy. We are talking about a large-scale task that will have lasting effects on German politics, the economy and society and, by extension, that of Europe. Lindner believes that Scholz’s proposals “are boring, unambitious and do not contribute to overcoming the fundamental weakness of our country’s growth,” as he confessed, and is committed to tax cuts and measures that encourage business dynamism and innovation. The chancellor, on the other hand, believes that Germany must remain faithful to the old principles of Rhineland capitalism and social consultation with the unions, even if it is at the cost of breaking budgetary rules.
The crisis of Scholz’s government coalition has ended up blocking the politics of a country that already had its economy practically paralyzed. The CEO of the powerful Deutsche Bank warned yesterday that every month that the country continues without reforms is equivalent to a year of stagnation in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a warning that allows us to understand the magnitude of the challenge that German politics has on its hands. , once exemplary in Europe.
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