Germany: crisis accelerates, no confidence in December, elections in February
Chancellor Scholz is complying with demands to hurry up: parties, companies and voters want the situation to be resolved as soon as possible. But after the renewal of parliament, it will take months to form a majority coalition
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Key points
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Olaf Scholz has to give in: the chancellor will appear before the Bundestag to collect the vote of no confidence in his government on 16 December. He will then be able to ask the head of state to dissolve parliament in order to call new elections within the next 60 days. The date indicated is 23 February.
Scholz adapts
.The pressure on Scholz is too great to allow him to stick to the programme he set out on 6 November, when he opened the coalition crisis by torpedoing Finance Minister and Liberal leader Christian Lindner. The PM wanted to appear in parliament on 15 January and bring the country to a vote in March, so that he would have time to try to push through a number of pending measures, including tax relief for workers and support measures for the manufacturing industry.
In addition, the Budget Law 2025, on which the coalition split over decisions on borrowing, must be passed by the end of the year. Parliament must also pass a supplementary budget for 2024.
Compared to Scholz's plan, it is accelerated by a month: the demand of the Cdu and Afd to do even more quickly, with the no-confidence vote already this week and the elections in January, does not take into account the necessary technical time.
The overwhelming majority of voters want the crisis to be resolved as soon as possible, as does the business world. The German economy is at a standstill and investor confidence unexpectedly worsened in November, with the Zew Institute's expectations index dropping to 7.4 from 13.1 the previous month. Even the Greens, still allied with the SPD, joined the chorus.
