The early end of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ government had been anticipated, including by this column, for some time, but when it came late on Wednesday night, it still came with a twist.
For weeks, Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the fiscally hawkish Free Democrats (FDP) had been obviously looking to create a situation that would make early elections inevitable. Last night, however, Scholz simply sacked him. The chancellor, as he explained in a statement of rare clarity, had grown tired of Lindner putting party over country, and fiscal dogma over Germany’s policy imperatives.
The final straw was when Lindner blocked an immediate increase of Germany’s financial assistance to Ukraine in the wake of Donald Trump’s overwhelming win in the US presidential race. Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 now potentially jeopardizes continued American support for the country under brutal Russian—and now also North Korean—attack.
The German chancellor, rightly, wanted to send a signal on not giving up on Ukraine now, supported by the Greens—Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck, who is also vice chancellor, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, both leading Greens, made that imperative clear in a late statement afterwards. The immediate solution was to throw Lindner, who simply kept insisting on a 2025 budget in line with Germany’s “debt brake” (limiting new debt to 0.35% of GDP), out of the government.
Things Moving Quickly
Scholz’ rare resolute action brings to an end Germany’s first three-way coalition since the 1950s—an experiment none of the parties would wish to repeat if they can avoid it. Scholz has made his economic and Europe advisor, Jörg Kukies, finance minister; the FDP’s transport and digital affairs minister Volker Wissing, who did not agree with Lindner’s actions, has left his party and stays in place. The timetable Scholz presented—tabling a confidence vote in parliament on January 15, followed by new election possibly on March 9—has been challenged by the center-right Christian Democrat (CDU/CSU) opposition, and also by Lindner. Things may move quickly in the coming days.
However, no matter how soon the new elections will take place, the simple necessity of Germany playing its role in finding answers to a world soon dominated by the second coming of Trump will not go away.
It will be essential for CDU/CSU leader and likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz—who has been stronger than Scholz when it comes to demanding greater support for Ukraine, but weaker when it comes to explaining how to find the money—to play a constructive role in this. As the next German government may likely be a CDU/CSU-SPD or a CDU/CSU-Greens coalition (Merz has ruled out the latter, for now), it makes a lot of sense to build on the German foreign policy consensus on Ukraine as well as on a “strong Europe.”
Work-in-Progress
Unfortunately, the legacy the Scholz government will leave behind has remained a work-in-progress, to put it mildly—an often chaotic bundle of half-hearted new beginnings (security policy) and, especially on the part of the chancellery, a blind clinging to outdated approaches (China). There is also the paradox that the German government that wrote the most pro-European, ambitious and integrationist coalition treaty ever, claiming that all its actions would be “in the European interest,” has not much to show for on the EU stage.
It would be easy to blame Lindner and the FDP, which routinely applied the brakes, forcing one “German vote” of abstention after the other in Brussels, but that is only half the truth. All too often the Scholz government acted too cautiously and too much in what it perceived as the German interest, rather than the European one.
In Europe and elsewhere, the world had the uncomfortable habit of not operating according to the German foreign policy beliefs: Scholz’ and also Baerbock’s allegedly post-American “multipolar world” turned out to be better described as great power rivalry, with Germany so far incapable of finding a clear, strategic mooring of its own. The “new global partners” Berlin was seeking in India, Brazil, and elsewhere turned out to have their own ideas about such relationships, world order, and what Germany’s contribution should be. At the same time, it always remained unclear how Germany—and Europe at large—would safeguard their security when the United States was just one pole among others.
A Special Relationship
And when it came to Ukraine, Scholz did the exact opposite, banking on Washington and its leadership more than anyone. The special relationship Scholz built with outgoing US President Joe Biden will weigh even heavier now in the wake of the Trump victory. In contrast, relationships with French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s new leader Donald Tusk never flourished, and the Europeans on the “eastern flank” were often left wondering what Berlin was really up to.
Germany’s still far-too-slow military reaction what Scholz famously called a Zeitenwende in his one brilliant speech after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine would likely be even more of a disappointment without Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, a little-known regional politician who was parachuted into the role in early 2023 to take over from a completely hapless SPD predecessor. Pistorius pushed through the setting up of the “Lithuania brigade,” promising to permanently deploy around 5,000 German soldiers in that country to deter further Russian aggression, almost single-handedly. The excellent British-German defense cooperation treaty, signed last month, is also largely the work of Pistorius, who marked the evening of Trump’s success with an impromptu visit to his French counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu.
Setting Priorities
And again, it was not only Lindner who blocked the further defense budget increases that Pistorius demanded as well as a plausible long-term financial plan for a sustained rearmament, the necessity of which is put in even sharper light by Trump returning to the White House. The self-gratulatory backslapping for finally reaching the NATO goal—agreed in 2014 (!)—of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense this year, thanks to drawing on the €100 billion special fund, couldn’t be more displaced. With Trump in the White House, European defense budgets of 3 or 4 percent will now need to become the new normal, and quick.
Overall, the Scholz coalition of SPD, Greens, and FDP shied away from making clear choices, certainly in its foreign and security policy. Everything was important—the 2023 National Security Strategy speaks of this—so, in the end, nothing was. Until Wednesday night, when help for Ukraine, in part, led to the final break-up of the coalition.
The next German government will have to make those often-difficult decisions about priorities—and reform the “debt brake,” at least by exempting defense expenditure, to find the necessary resources. For Germany and Europe to have any chance of prevailing in a “strongmen world” of Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and China’s Xi Jinping, there is no other way.
Henning Hoff is Executive Editor of INTERNATIONALE POLITIK QUARTERLY.
