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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Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.

Raphfel

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