The German parliament on Monday accepted Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s invitation to withdraw confidence in him and his government, paving the way for early elections on February 23 that will be held thanks to the collapse of his government.
Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed last month after the back-to-back exit of the pro-market Free Democrats over debt, leaving his Social Democrats and Greens a parliamentary majority just as Germany faces a deepening economic crisis.
Under rules designed to bridge the instability that facilitated the emergence of fascism in the 1930s, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier can only dissolve parliament and call elections if the chancellor calls and loses a vote of confidence.
Only 207 of the 733 parliamentarians expressed their confidence, while 394 rejected it.
“The movement has been adopted,” said the speaker of parliament, Baerbel Bas.
The chancellor and his conservative opponent Friedrich Merz clashed angrily in a debate before the vote, accusing the other of incompetence and shortsightedness.
Scholz, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), defended his record as a crisis leader in the face of the economic and security emergency caused by Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. If he had a second term, he said he would invest heavily in Germany’s fragile infrastructure, making the spending cuts he said conservatives wanted.
“Myopia may simply save money in the short term, but long-term borrowing is unaffordable,” said Scholz, who was finance minister for four years in a previous coalition with the conservatives before becoming chancellor in 2021.
Merz, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party once led by Angela Merkel, told Scholz that his spending plans would weigh on future generations and accused him of failing to fulfill his rearmament promises after the start of the war in Ukraine. .
“Going into debt at the expense of the younger generation, burning through cash. . . and not once has the word ‘competitiveness’ been said,” Merz said.
Neither leader mentioned Germany’s constitutional spending cap, a measure designed to ensure fiscal responsibility but which many economists blame for the fraying state of Germany’s infrastructure.
Following Scholz’s defeat in Monday’s election, he can ask President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has already approved his timetable, to dissolve parliament. Scholz will remain acting chancellor until a new government can be formed after elections scheduled for February 23.
The CDU has a comfortable, if small, lead of more than 10 points over the SPD in the main polls. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is ahead of Scholz’s party, while the Greens are in fourth place.
The dominant parties have refused to govern with the AfD, its presence complicates parliamentary arithmetic, making tripartite coalitions like Scholz’s more likely.
Meanwhile, Scholz laid out a list of measures that could be approved with the opposition ahead of the election, adding 11 billion euros ($16. 45 billion) in tax cuts and an increase in child benefits already agreed through former coalition partners.
Measures to deal with the fiscal drag appear less certain, while Merz said he would not accept a proposal from the Greens to cut energy prices, saying he was looking for an entirely new energy policy.
Robert Habeck, the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, said the stance a being worried signal for German democracy, given the developing likelihood, in a fractured political landscape, that very other parties would be forced to paintings in combination in government.
“It is very likely that the next government will have things easier,” Habeck said. “It is very likely that the conservatives, the SPD or the Greens will get an absolute majority. “
Conservatives have hinted that they could take steps to better protect the Constitutional Court from the machinations of a future populist or undemocratic government and to improve life in a subsidized country.
The AfD’s leader Alice Weidel called for all Syrian refugees in Germany to be sent back following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government.
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