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November 7, 2024 - 10:00am
Following long-running predictions of its demise, Germany’s coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats (FDP) has now entered its final stage. In a press conference yesterday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the dismissal of FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner, accusing him of obstructing the government at every step, especially through his unwillingness to approve a higher budget deficit.
Something else stood out from the press conference, though. Scholz lamented that the dire situation in which the country finds itself is due to unforeseen geopolitical circumstances, especially the war in Ukraine. This may be the case, but a look at the most recent forecast by the International Monetary Fund demonstrates that almost every other major economy is capable of achieving at least modest growth, while Germany is stagnating. The truth — and, as Finance Minister, Lindner knows this — is that German decline is primarily due to an ideologically driven, rather than reality-based, economic policy.
This is nothing new. Commentators and analysts have long drawn attention to the pitfalls of shutting down nuclear power plants, banning the internal combustion engine and believing that wind and solar can replace fossil fuels. That’s before we get to bureaucratic monstrosities such as the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism”, or supply chain regulations that force small and medium enterprises to dedicate more and more of their resources towards administrative work and away from their actual core businesses.
It is not entirely clear what the Chancellor hopes to achieve with this public scolding and the dissolution of the coalition government. Elections were scheduled for autumn next year anyway, so what could be Scholz’s calculation behind holding them slightly earlier (most likely in March)? One possible explanation is that Donald Trump’s victory in this week’s US election played a role in his decision. Right-wing parties are now in the ascendancy across the West, and they are continuing to eat away at what used to be the social democratic vote. Germany’s working class is shifting to the Right, a trend of which Scholz is only too aware.
For Lindner and his party, however, this will be too little, too late. He was a witness and accomplice to Germany’s decline, and has been punished by the voters in a string of regional elections. The FDP is on the brink of being voted out of the German parliament entirely, and yesterday’s press conference will have done nothing to stop this. The same, of course, goes for Scholz’s Social Democrats. While his party will be able to re-enter the Bundestag, it will be a shadow of its former self. Current polls have the SPD at 16%, but it remains to be seen whether he can maintain even that abysmal number.
The winds are increasingly blowing in favour of the hard-Right, and the AfD is taking advantage. The party was already doing well in the polls with 17% of the vote, but as the current government plunges into chaos, the AfD’s appeal will grow as a true alternative for a Germany that seems to be in terminal decline. With Trump in the White House and the continued normalisation of Right-Wing policies, many Germans may shrug when presented with the AfD and think: “Why not?” As far as they’re concerned, things could hardly get worse than they are right now.
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SubscribeAh…the Hard Right!
Possibly the writer would enlighten us as to what he considers to be Hard Right.
Normally political pundits mean any policy which is even mildly “conservative”, and which therefore disagrees with anything the woke Left espouse.
It seeems in Germany they might actually have a hard right. An actual hard right.
Farage is notably dismissive of the AfD… he sees it as being a mess at the moment.
Have you read their policies? I doubt Farage did as I think he would get along very well with AfD’s leader Alice Weidel.
I noticed that too every other single time I’ve seen the AfD brought up it’s always been called “the far-Right” now suddenly its “the hard-Right” wonder why the sudden change in opinion?
They have wised up to the notion that we are just laughing at ‘far-right’ boogey men these days. However, I have a lot of respect for Schoellhammer. I am surprised he used such terms to refer to ordinary, largely working class people who have had an absolute belly-full of hard left zealots destroying their lives.
Wolfgang Münchau’s analysis of this on Eurointelligence (“Kaput“) is interesting: https://www.eurointelligence.com/
He seems to take the continued existence of the Brandmauer or political firewall against the AfD for granted in his analysis, choosing to come to rest on the impasse which the other parties have chequered themselves into.
I don’t know enough about German politics to pontificate on the different scenarios which could come of this: are some brand new coalition constellations going to become possible, with the BSW and the AfD (destroying the firewall)?
Spare a thought for poor Christian Lindner – I think the paper he put out about a roadmap for the German economy was a last ditch attempt to save his own party from electoral oblivion and it’s already gone down in flames. Adding insult to injury, he’s been fired by the worst chancellor Germany has had in recent years. Ouch.
I have no pity with Lindner. His party, with liberal free market policies, should never have chosen to be in a coalition with the current German Green Party and their mad left wing green policies. Any sane person could see, that it would lead to the destruction of Germany’s highly sophisticated industries, which depend on cheap reliable energy
How about actual energy period. If this is a cold winter, Germany is going to see actual deaths from hypothermia, and that will be due to the Green madness.
No mention of BSW, which will also have a significant role to play and whose existence and success prove that the concerns the AFD express and disillusion with the mainstream is not the preserve of the Right.
Mind you, it’s inevitable that the election will be inconclusive: more evidence of how bad PR is for democracy.
Which system is better when you have multiple parties? Perhaps you’d prefer the UKs FPTP, whereby winning a third of the vote can give you a large majority in the Commons?
On balance, yes.
Can’t come soon enough
What the writer calls “hard right” are actually policies which would have been quite normal in the old FDP or Union parties: free market with less regulations and the will to check people at borders, who are streaming into the country, all this mixed with a dash of healthy Patriotism. Speeches by former Chancellor Helmut Kohl or F.J.Strauss would be considered extreme right wing nowadays.
Yesterday I read a German comment on X: “I can hardly cope with so many good news within the last 24 hours”. It seems Trump’s Election had a chain reaction in many European politicians’ heads…
It’s not the end with a whimper of the Ampel that is the gift; German politics post-Merkel have been a gift to the AfD … and now BSW.
Without really understanding what he has said, Mr. Schoellhammer has articulated the voters’ choice. It is no longer left-right-center – post-Merkel, these concepts have become meaningless, empty shells.
It is between reality-based politics and ideology-based politics.
But it was Merkel who shut down Germany nuclear power stations and signed up to idiocy of net zero.
And kept appeasing Putin with the help of Macron.
Then what do you expect from Russia agent?
It was the demented Merkel who started all this rubbish.
These political developments seem to indicate that Germany (and most of the West) is unprepared for a revamped Trump-style fiscal reality.
Fingers crossed that Trump follows through on his pledges and we see the end of Net Zero and EV mandates. That should flush most of the green activism out of the political system (activism isn’t much of a career without financing). In Ottawa, the Liberals are already squeaking about what a Trump presidency will mean and no wonder. Trump v45 made it clear he didn’t like Trudeau or his progressive nonsense policies.
I’m sure there will be arguments made that the ‘Rest of the West’ can stay the course on Green fantasies without America but I wouldn’t bet on it. That said, Trump will be steering the largest ship afloat in a world that thinks basic economic principles such as ‘don’t spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need’ mark you as far-Right.
Should be interesting.
Germany’s implosion is a gift to all of Western Civilization. The Trump election as well. Yes will be very interesting!
I’m hoping AfD gets a full majority – improbable, I know. But a line in the sand about the Musscum must be drawn.