Germany’s centre-right opposition leader led calls for an immediate vote of confidence to be held in parliament to head off months of political paralysis after Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition collapsed.
Friedrich Merz, the chair of the former chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), stands to profit most from the bombshell developments in Berlin, one day after Donald Trump’s election as US president upended the global political landscape.
In a hastily called news conference on Wednesday night after firing his finance minister – the leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), Christian Lindner – Scholz had laid out a roadmap for the coming weeks, including a formal confidence vote in January that would have led to a snap election, probably in March – six months ahead of schedule.
But on Thursday morning, Merz, who is in a strong position to become the country’s next leader, rejected that timetable out of hand, saying there was “absolutely no reason to wait to put off the confidence vote to January”.
“The end last night is the end of the traffic light,” Merz said, referring to Scholz’s three-way coalition government, “and hence the end of this mandate.” Scholz and his alliance have been in power since 2021.
The opposition leader told reporters his parliamentary group had agreed unanimously that Scholz should schedule the confidence vote by next week “at the latest”, after which the country’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, would have 21 days to dissolve the Bundestag lower house of parliament. That would probably lead to a snap election in late January.
Merz said those three weeks could be used constructively to determine whether there was common ground between his CDU and the remaining government parties, Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, to tackle pressing issues including the next federal budget. He later held a 25-minute meeting with Scholz about the path forward which was described as “fruitless”.
A bitterly fought debate on Germany’s fiscal priorities triggered the ultimately fatal rift with the FDP and Scholz has expressed hope he can reach an agreement on the budget in the interim with the centre right.
“I am of course ready to have talks … and assume responsibility,” Merz said, but he implied the deal would be off if Scholz intended to drag his feet on a new political start for the country.
The Christian Social Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, took a harsher tone, with its parliamentary leader, Alexander Dobrindt, saying that Germany in its current condition, with weak economic growth and a crisis in manufacturing, “simply can’t afford to be in a chancellor coma”.
He said allowing a lame-duck government without a majority in parliament to limp along until spring would be “arrogant and disrespectful” to voters.
The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, which stands to make gains from the political upheaval and is now polling at about 17%, just ahead of Scholz’s SPD, is also pushing for fresh elections as soon as possible.
The foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, on the public broadcaster ARD, defended Scholz’s designated schedule as “paving the way for an orderly transition” including time for parties to make their case to voters in an election campaign.
“Because order is the most important thing in these insecure times,” Baerbock said, pointing to the outcome of the US presidential election and Germany’s “key responsibility” in Europe as the world’s third largest economy.
In a sign of how all-consuming the political crisis is likely to be for the EU powerhouse, Scholz’s team confirmed he had cancelled his plan to attend the Cop29 climate summit in Baku next week.
The political turmoil in Germany comes at a time of deep uncertainty in Europe, including over the future of Ukraine, and shaky leadership from Berlin and Paris. France’s weakened president, Emmanuel Macron, also called a snap election earlier this year and is under pressure from both the hard right and the far left.
Although Scholz’s loveless three-party coalition had been at loggerheads for months, deepening a sense of powerlessness as the economic outlook turned bleaker and the crucial auto industry skidded into trouble, mainstream parties have feared German voters could drift further to the extremes in new elections.
The AfD and a new leftwing conservative upstart, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), both performed strongly in European parliament elections in June and again in three state polls in September in the former communist east.
All the main parties have ruled out working with the AfD. Meanwhile, the BSW is polling at about 8% nationally, behind the Greens on about 11% but ahead of the pro-business FDP with 3-4%, meaning it could serve as a spoiler in what is sure to be arduous coalition-building after the snap election.
Already this week, the BSW brought talks on forming a new government in Saxony to a halt when the incumbent CDU rejected Wagenknecht’s demand to include criticism of German weapons deliveries to Ukraine in any coalition agreement.
Merz, who is widely tipped to succeed Scholz as chancellor, has been full-throated in his support of Ukraine, particularly with the threat of diminishing US aid.
Analysts said that while the danger of Germans turning in greater numbers to the political fringes was real, the election of Trump could also serve as a cautionary tale.
Despite the strong historical and cultural ties between Germany and the US, Germany by contrast has “70-80% of people who want a serious, stability-oriented approach”, said the political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder of the University of Kassel.
“Particularly in this crisis situation, it may be that that the 70-80% even gets stabilised and the extremes get pushed back – there’s nothing that will automatically make this moment advantageous for the AfD and BSW,” he told the rolling news channel n-tv.
