President calls German early election plan 'realistic'

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Tuesday announced that it would reschedule its national party conference in light of snap federal elections. 

The AfD will now hold its confab in January rather than March, after the collapse of the current center-left governing coalition and the decision to now hold elections scheduled for September on February 23.

The AfD decision was announced by party co-chair and expected chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, who gave neither date nor venue for the event.

The AfD's staunch anti-immigrant and pro-Russian stances have contributed to the party's significant electoral rise over the past several years. It has traditionally performed well in eastern German states but has increasingly made inroads across the country.

The coming election will present a national snapshot of the party's acceptance. In 2021, AfD took roughly 10% of the federal vote. Current polling has the party's approval rating at about 17%.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has approved the timeline for early elections agreed to by Germany's main parties, saying the plan to hold the vote on February 23 is "realistic."

The head of state "welcomes the fact that the parliamentary groups have agreed on a roadmap towards a vote of confidence" on December 16" and "considers February 23, 2025, to be a realistic date for new elections," his office said in a statement.

He had also "made it clear that in the event that the Bundestag withdraws its confidence in the Chancellor, he will quickly decide on a dissolution."

According to the Basic Law, the German president has the power to dissolve the Bundestag and call for new elections.

Germany's political agenda for the coming months is pretty much set as of today. On December 16, German lawmakers will hold a vote of confidence on Scholz's minority government. 

If Scholz loses the vote, which is the most likely scenario, the ball will be in the court of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He will have to decide whether to dissolve parliament and call a new election.

German political parties want the date set for that nationwide vote to be February 23, 2025, and the president generally follows the parties' request.

Until then, Germany faces a three-month standstill. Apart from several laws that still need to be passed, the biggest challenges ahead will likely be in foreign policy. There's much uncertainty over what will happen after January 20, when Donald Trump is sworn for his second term as US president.

If Trump declares a trade war with Europe or announces a peace deal in Ukraine, Germany will be in the middle of an election campaign and would likely be regarded internationally as a "lame duck."

In the end, Germany's political fringes — parties on the far-right and far-left — could benefit from this.

Newly appointed Finance Minister Jörg Kukies has said it is unlikely the government would pass a 2025 budget before a snap election expected on February 23.

"It is not realistic that the new federal budget for 2025 will be passed" before the general election, Kukies said at an event hosted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily. 

Kukies also said there will be no budget freeze for 2024, adding that the government would be able to get though the end of the year. 

The CDU and FDP expressed opposition to the government's supplementary budget for 2024, which was supposed to pass parliament on Wednesday.

"Whether there will be a supplementary budget in 2024 or whether we really need one is not yet clear," he said in his first appearance as finance minister.

Kukies, 56, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) was appointed to his job after former Finance Minister Christian Lindner of FDP was fired amid wide rifts over budget policy with coalition partners the SPD and Greens.

Lindner's removal led to the collapse of the coalition government.

Economy Minister and Green Party chancellor candidate Robert Habeck said  "everyone should expect" February 23 to be the date of the early election in Germany.

Despite his party's poor performance in recent polling — they have dropped to around 12% — he pointed to an increase in party membership as a sign the Greens are ready for a short campaign.

"It's only six days since the German government collapsed. Since then, I would say my party gained momentum. We have 5,500 new members within five days, that is unprecedented," Habeck told reporters during a press conference at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon.

He added that the party would usually consider a "wave" of applications to be around 2,000.

Habeck also signaled his willingness to enter a coalition with the conservative CDU. The center-right opposition party currently has a significant lead in the polls and joining a CDU government as a junior partner is Habeck's only realistic route back into government.

He noted that previous coalitions between the CDU and the Greens on the level of state governments. 

"I come from Schleswig-Holstein and I was involved in governments two times and the second one was with the conservatives. In Schleswig-Holstein that was something unusual," he said. That coalition also involved the liberal FDP.

Any coalition talks with the CDU could be complicated by their Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Its leader, Marcus Söder, has repeatedly attacked Habeck in public and ruled out working with him.

Habeck came to Web Summit, Europe’s largest tech conference, with an all-women delegation of startup founders. He said it was important to him to attend, despite the political crisis at home, to support German and European tech companies.

If the February 23 date is confirmed by German President Steinmeier, this is what must happen before the elections take place:

• ChancellorOlaf Scholz will put forward a motion in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, for a vote of confidence in his government
• The Bundestag would vote on the motion 48 hours later, with the expectation that the government would lose, seeing it no longer has a majority in parliament
• Scholz would propose to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the Bundestag be dissolved, in accordance with Article 68 of the Basic Law, or constitution
• Under the law, the president would then have 21 days to dissolve the parliament, though he is not obliged to do so under the constitution
• If he does, he will set a date for the election within the 60 days of dissolution, as stipulated by the Basic Law
• Normally, the president will follow the government's recommendation as to the date for the election — in this case, February 23
• National elections in Germany always take place on a Sunday

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What's been happening in Berlin over the past week is a real political thriller — by German standards.

A three-party coalition government, which could have been an interesting experiment in peacetime, has failed to be just that during wartime in Europe.

Scholz's government has collapsed and is no longer able to act.

He has realized that delaying his departure any longer would only mean greater political damage to himself, his party, and democracy in Germany.  

Germans call his decision "Schadensbegrenzung," or damage limitation. 

Now, the parliamentary group of Scholz's SPD and the largest opposition group CDU/CSU are deciding the timing of early elections. 

They have agreed on the political schedule for the next few weeks and will probably today announce early elections for February 23. 

If they hadn't managed to come to an agreement so quickly, political chaos in Germany would have been much greater. 

These centrist parties want to show that they can steady the ship of government and avoid a long period of political uncertainty.

The Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is eager for things to proceed quickly, now that Germany's governing coalition has collapsed.

"Chancellor Scholz has long lost the trust of the German people and he must clear the way for a new election immediately," Alice Weidel, co-chair of the far-right AfD, put it after the government collapsed last week.

The AfD said that Scholz should face a vote of no confidence and step down "as soon as possible." 

The far-right party has fiercely attacked the governing coalition since it was first took power at the end of December 2021.

It has criticized the coalition for failing on all policy levels, calling for a radical change, especially in migration and foreign policy. Similar to US President-elect Donald Trump, the party has campaigned hard against irregular migration and open borders.

And it vehemently opposes all arms shipments to Ukraine.

Though unlikely to govern, how does the AfD want to reach German voters? Read DW's analysis.

The presumed election date in February is very much in line with the wishes of the opposition CDU, which has pressured Scholz to hold the poll as early as possible.

The CDU under its leader, Friedrich Merz, is currently enjoying good popularity ratings amid widespread dissatisfaction with a coalition government whose constant infighting seemed to prevent it from effective decision-making.

The Greens, another partner in the three-way coalition, had also called on Scholz, who initially suggested an election in late March, to speed up the process.

German voters also appear to be in favor of getting the elections behind them, with a recent poll showing two-thirds wanting the poll sooner rather than later.

The collapse of the German government comes at a time when strong leadership from the biggest European economy would seem highly necessary amid numerous geopolitical and environmental challenges.

Germany will hold snap general elections on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's center-left coalition, according to parliamentary sources speaking to dpa and AFP news agencies on Tuesday. 

The sources said parliamentary leaders from Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) reached an agreement on the date on Tuesday.

Scholz is expected to call a vote of confidence in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on December 16 to enable the election to be held.

The collapse of the three-way ruling coalition was triggered by Scholz's firing of his finance minister, Christian Lindner, from the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), which led to the FDP's withdrawal from the government.

The FDP pullout left Scholz without a majority in the Bundestag.

A "traffic light" coalition in Germany includes the center-left SPD (represented by red), the business-focused Free Democrats (FDP — represented by yellow), and the environmentalist Greens.

The traffic light coalition formed under Scholz in 2021 is just one example. 

Germany's 2021 general election saw the SPD emerging as the biggest party in Germany's lower house, the Bundestag, ahead of its main rival, the conservative CDU/CSU union.

The SPD had shared power as a junior coalition partner with conservatives in a so-called "grand coalition" for three terms during Chancellor Angela Merkel's 16 years in office. 

Three years ago, both parties ruled out the possibility of a similar, if reversed situation with the conservatives as junior. Instead, the political pendulum swung toward the traffic light coalition.

It was on EU, foreign, and security policy that the three parties seem to be most aligned. However, there were always fundamental differences in the parties' domestic platforms.

The FDP was against the SPD and Greens' plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest to deal with the pandemic and the resulting national debt.

Lindner's liberals appear also at odds with both parties' climate policy, which envisions a stronger government hand. Instead, the FDP wanted market-driven solutions to the climate crisis.

More recently, the three parties remained deeply divided over next year's budget and the steps required to fix the country's ailing economy. 

Representatives of the three parties making up Germany's center-left government — the SPD, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens — met for a crisis meeting on Wednesday last week. It lasted only two hours.

The coalition partners no longer had much to say to each other.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the FDP proposed early elections, Scholz refused and dismissed Lindner from office. 

From the time the coalition began to govern in 2021, the FDP consistently rebelled against the more interventionist policies of its partners.

Things came to a head during recent budget discussions, where the FDP's opposition to higher borrowing to finance its partners' climate and social policy goals and boost the economy caused a stalemate.

That led to the sacking of Lindner, which in turn triggered the withdrawal of his party from the coalition.

The now two-way coalition has since governed as a minority government that has to seek opposition support to pass any laws.

DW details how the coalition fell apart in this article.

tj/wmr (AFP, dpa, Reuters)