German Chancellor Olaf Scholz submitted a request to hold a vote of confidence on Wednesday (11 December), setting in motion the process for Germany to hold snap elections in February 2025, as planned.
Scholz had announced last month that Germany would hold early elections after his government coalition collapsed over a dispute on economic policy.
He told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday that he had asked the President of the German Bundestag, Bärbel Bas, to schedule the necessary vote of confidence for next Monday (16 December).
If a majority of lawmakers votes against the chancellor – as expected – Scholz can ask the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to dissolve parliament, possibly on 27 December, paving the way for early elections.
Scholz had initially stated he would want to hold elections in March, but with mounting pressure to facilitate an earlier date, he settled on 23 February 2025.
The elections would allow voters to decide “how we answer the big questions that lie ahead of us,” Scholz said in Berlin.
He named the primary challenges as facilitating more investment, protecting jobs, modernising Germany’s industry, maintaining pensions, health, and care systems, and approaching a just peace in Ukraine “without dragging Germany into the war.”
Scholz also reiterated his intention to pass a number of legislative measures before the parliamentary Christmas recess. But the list has shrunk significantly compared to Scholz’s announcement immediately after the breakdown of his government on 6 November.
While he then wanted to implement a pension reform and support packages for businesses, Scholz merely listed his intention to pass tweaks to tax, transport and benefits systems and cap energy costs on Wednesday.
His coalition government of Social Democrats (SPD/S&D) and Greens (Greens/EFA) has been short of a majority since the departure of the Free Democrats (FDP/Renew), however.
The FDP and the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU/EPP), the largest opposition party, have already made it clear that they will not support anything but the most rudimentary necessities, accusing the chancellor of masking election gifts as necessary measures.
Scholz’s SPD is currently poised to lose power, as it is polling in third place, far behind the CDU/CSU and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD/ESN) in second place.
[Edited by Martina Monti]
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