Germany: FDP hatched plan to quit ruling coalition — reports

Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) plotted to collapse Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government two months before it fell apart, two German newspapers reported on Saturday.

The revelations come as the country prepares for snap elections in February, following the sacking of FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindnerearlier this month. Lindner's widely reported plan to lower taxes, scrap recent reforms and roll back environment protection targets was deemed a provocation by his left-leaning coalition partners, and his party decided to pull out of the coalition. The coalition then collapsed.

However, the alliance between the FDP, Scholz's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the environmentally-friendly Greens had been unsteady for more than a year due to ideological differences and disputes over the government budget. 

What did the newspapers reveal?

Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung cited several sources as saying that the FDP had drawn up a plan during secret talks in Potsdam in September to break away from the three-party coalition.

Lindner, who was fired by Scholz from his post as finance minister after months of wrangling over the 2025 budget, attended the talks, along with several other FDP government ministers and officials in the party's parliamentary faction, Die Zeit reported.

Top of the agenda, according to the newspapers, was the future of the German coalition government and the future of the FDP.

Die Zeit said what was discussed over the next few hours was "the beginning of the end of the traffic light government," referring to the colors of the three parties: green, red, and yellow. The FDP officials reportedly drew up the first outlines of "the script for the overthrow of the government," known internally as the "D-Day" project.

The original D-Day marked the landing of Allied troops in Normandy, France in June 1944, marking the beginning of the end of World War II and Germany's then-Nazi regime.

Party chiefs evaluated several options

Several scenarios were reportedly developed by the party's top leadership over the next two months, who eventually produced a detailed plan to exit the coalition.

Die Zeit said an economic policy paper was even drawn up, which the party knew would be unacceptable to the other coalition partners, who had been wracked by months of infighting.

A timetable for the withdrawal of FDP ministers from the cabinet was also discussed, the newspaper reported.

The FDP was at the time polling below 5%, a crucial threshold for any party to enter the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag.

Party officials were also concerned that the FDP could disappear into obscurity for the second time in a decade. Between 2009 and 2013, the party was a part of former Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition, but then dropped below the 5% threshold and was left without seats in the national parliament.

According to Die Zeit, Lindner made it clear that he saw no hope for the party if it remained in government.

FDP plays down media reports

Responding to the revelations, a spokesperson for the FDP told DPA news agency: "We do not comment on internal meetings."

The spokesman added that assessments about the party's future in the coalition had taken place "repeatedly and in various rounds," ever since Germany's Constitutional Court last November declared the coalition's 2021 supplementary budget unconstitutional.

The supplementary budget was designed so Scholz's government could move €60 billion ($63.25 billion) in unused COVID pandemic recovery funds to bolster its climate and infrastructure investments.

"Of course, scenarios were considered again and again and opinions were gathered," the FDP spokesman said.

The spokesman continued that Lindner had proposed two options to Scholz at a meeting in early November.

These were "an agreement on a realignment of economic policy or the orderly termination of the coalition through a joint path to new elections," he added.

How the German government collapsed

After Lindner was dismissed on November 6, the same day as Donald Trump was reelected as US president, two of the three remaining FDP ministers in the federal government walked out, while another quit the party.

This left Scholz leading a minority government, prompting calls for a confidence vote in the government and early elections

Ahead of February's likely federal vote, most pollsters are already predicting a grand coalition between center-right CDU/CSU — Merkel's former alliance — and Scholz's SPD as most likely.

The FDP is currently polling at 4%, according to a survey published Saturday by the INSA polling institute for Germany's largest mass circulation daily, Bild.

mm/dj (DPA, Die Zeit)