German Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses confidence vote, clearing the way for February election

Key Points

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday lost a confidence vote in the country’s Bundestag.
• This marked only the sixth time in Germany’s history that such a vote has taken place.
• Scholz was expected — and hoping — to lose the vote, which he had called for himself in November in order to trigger earlier than planned elections.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will undergo a vote of confidence in Parliament on Monday, December 16.

Michael Kappeler | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday lost a confidence vote in the country’s Bundestag, clearing the path for an early election in February.

Scholz was expected — and hoping — to lose the vote, which he had called for himself in November in order to trigger earlier-than-planned elections, which were originally scheduled for the fall of 2025.

It marks only the sixth time in Germany’s history that such a vote has taken place, and the fourth time a president has fallen foul of the vote.

Scholz said Monday that he had called the vote not only for parliament but the whole of the electorate.

“Do we dare be a strong country, to invest powerfully in our future,” Scholz told lawmakers prior to the vote, according to a Google translation.

Scholz sacked former Finance Minister Christian Lindner in November, effectively bringing an end to Germany’s ruling coalition which had been in power since 2021. It was made up of Scholz’ Social Democratic Party (SPD), Lindner’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green party.

The SPD and Green party have remained in government as a de facto minority government, and will continue to do so even after Monday’s vote, until a new Bundestag is formed. Without the parliamentary majority needed to pass laws, Scholz is however widely seen as a lame duck.

to succeed Scholz as chancellor. The CDU/CSU is then widely expected to enter a coalition with either the SPD, or in a less likely scenario the Green party, to form Germany’s next government.

Kallum Pickering, chief economist at Peel Hunt, said Monday that regardless of the election outcome, Germany’s economic malaise was likely to force an eventual agreement on fresh fiscal support.

“Even if within say the first three to six months of the new administration you don’t get changes to the debt brake, if they have a big enough majority, eventually I think economic conditions will just force them to accept the reality that they need a fiscal stimulus,” Pickering told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe.”

“The moment you get a fiscal stimulus in Germany, I think a lot of things start to look a bit better,” he added.

https:// NBC. Com/german-chancellor-olaf-scholz-loses-confident-vote-clearing-the-for-february-election/