Funeral in Berlin: Scholz pulls the plug on his coalition

As Europe digested the US election result last week, three leading figures of the German government were holding crisis talks in Berlin, said The Economist. But Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck and the finance minister, Christian Lindner, weren't discussing how best to respond to Donald Trump's proposed tariffs or the likely US stance on Ukraine: "they were deciding whether to blow up their fraying coalition.

Barely 12 hours later, it was all over – and how." In a "blistering speech", Scholz eviscerated Lindner, who leads the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), for his "incomprehensible egotism" and promptly fired him. The three parties that made up the "traffic-light" coalition that took office in 2021 – Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), the FDP and the Greens – had lost patience with each other long ago, but this was the final blow. Scholz has brought "one of the most unpopular governments in modern German history" to an "ignoble end".

Not before time, said Jan Schäfer in Bild (Berlin). Far from tackling Germany's major problems, from its stagnant economy to its failing asylum policies, the coalition "led the country into an even deeper mess" with its meddling and infighting. To be fair, the origins of the economic mess should be traced to the failure of former chancellor Angela Merkel, said Wolfgang Münchau in The Times: it was she who allowed the economy to become over-reliant on a few industries like cars and chemicals; dependent on Russia for gas; dependent on China for exports. It was she who allowed Germany to fall far behind in digital tech; it now has one of Europe's worst mobile phone networks, and many shops "still only accept cash".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The economic crisis may be of long standing, said Alexander Marguier in Cicero (Berlin), but Scholz is to blame for "the deepest political crisis since the founding of the Federal Republic". He tried to force Lindner to suspend the constitutional rules that limit the size of Germany's deficit in order to facilitate help for Ukraine, knowing Lindner wouldn't agree: then he sacked Lindner when he baulked. Scholz's lame-duck minority government will now have to soldier on until snap elections, called for early 2025.

And each of the coalition parties is likely to come a cropper in these elections, said Nette Nöstlinger on Politico (Brussels): Scholz's SPD is polling at a miserable 16%; the FDP and Greens are doing even worse. All three face growing challenges from both the hard-left populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, and the far-right AfD. But it's Friedrich Merz, of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), who's likely to be Germany's next chancellor, said Josef Kelnberger in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich). We can only hope he will rid the country of its new reputation as the "sick man of Europe", and offer real leadership at a time when the EU confronts the prospect of a second Trump presidency and a surge in support for the far-right.