Germany: Scholz joins EU leaders after coalition collapse

The secretary general of the Social Democrats, Matthias Mersch, told reporters on Friday that the party had seen more than 500 new members join in the two days since the coalition's breakup. 

Whether by accident or design, this came hot on the heels of a similar claim from the FDP, as the two parties traded blame for the disintegration. 

Miersch also said the party was preparing for the snap election campaign, saying that an "election victory conference" was planned for November 30 in Berlin, but that he couldn't yet provide further details. 

The SPD will need rather more than 500 new party members to secure election victory, at least judging by recent polls that put it at risk of losing its status as Germany's second-largest party to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). 

Pollsters put the SPD at around 16% support at present, less than half the anticipated support for the Christian Democrats. 

As the neoliberal FDP tried to focus on the positives on Friday, some members voiced dissatisfaction with former Finance Minister Christian Lindner's handling of the budget deadlock. 

Lawyer and climate activist Mathis Bönte said on X that he had asked party colleagues why Lindner alleges that Chancellor Scholz effectively asked him to break his oath of office by declaring a state of emergency to allow for extra government borrowing in 2025. 

"The war in Ukraine has already destabilized our society," Bönte wrote.

"What happens if Russia deposes the Ukrainian government? For me it's clear, that this poses an exceptional emergency situation that would justify exceeding the debt brake," according to the relevant part of German law, he argued. 

Others in the FDP have argued that securing necessary funding for Ukraine next year would have been possible without breaching the borrowing rules. 

Digitization expert and author Ann Cathrin Riedel said late on Thursday that she had left the party. 

"Today I notice once more, that my fundamental values as a democrat and a liberal do not align with the FDP," she wrote. 

And Lars Alt, a lawyer from Lower Saxony and former FDP member of the northern state's parliament, accused Lindner of acting "out of strategic calculation and out of fear of the 5% hurdle" that the party would have to clear to guarantee parliamentary representation in the next election.

He said this was "not just poor style, but also unworthy of the role of a governing party in Germany." 

"Facing this global and economic situation, one day after the US elections, you can't throw the center of Europe into a political crisis," Alt said on Instagram. 

"The content-based suggestions of the FDP regarding the economic situation were correct," Alt argued. "But as the smallest coalition partner, you must also be prepared to compromise for the good of the political stability of the country." 

A spokesman for the Free Democrats told reporters in Berlin that the party had received "roughly 650" new membership applications since the collapse of the coalition with the more left-leaning Social Democrats and Greens this week. 

"The FDP currently has around 70,000 members. Since the end of the coalition we're recording many new entrants and barely any departures," he said. 

Party leader Christian Lindner has taken a combative tone amid the collapse, blaming Scholz of the SPD for handling the deadlock poorly and accusing him of instigating a "calculated breach" of the coalition by firing him as finance minister. 

The FDP has been struggling in the polls like all three members of the erstwhile coalition. 

But the situation had been looking particularly grave for the FDP, with it hovering below the 5% threshold needed to guarantee representation in parliament after early elections, at least in polls conducted prior to Wednesday's breakup.

The FDP dropped out of the Bundestag after 2013's elections with 4.8% support, that time after a period in coalition government with the CDU.

It returned four years later and secured 11.4% of the vote in 2021's elections.

The president of Germany's Bundestag parliament, Bärbel Bas, alluded both to Donald Trump and to the German coalition collapse during her speech marking the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with the anniversary coming up on Saturday.

"We're experiencing turbulent days," Bas told the chamber. "Wednesday evening's events are occupying us all, and also the election in the United States and its consequences."

"In this moment let us reflect on the milestones of our history. And let us reinforce our values as enshrined in our constitution," she said. 

Bas went on to speak of the fall of the Berlin Wall 35 years ago and the path towards a reunified Germany in the aftermath of the Cold War. 

But she also recalled November 9, 1938, the Nazis' November pogroms against Jewish businesses and synagogues often called the Night of Broken Glass. 

And finally, Bas spoke of November 9, 1918, with the end of World War I and German capitulation imminent, when Social Democrat Philip Scheidemann declared what would become known as the Weimar Republic in the interwar years. Even then, he had urged people to protect the nascent democratic state he envisaged. 

"Our republic is no longer new today," Bas said. "But Scheidemann's words of warning remain up-to-date." 

"Particularly on November 9, this multifaceted date in our country's history, they are an appeal to us all: Let us take care of our democracy."

The exact dates might still be up for dispute — with Scholz hoping to deal with urgent business in parliament before disbanding his government completely, and the opposition critical of this — but the core steps towards snap elections in Germany are well established.

They're also liable to take at least six to eight weeks, no matter who gets their way on the pacing.  

Read David Ehl's outline of the path to an early German federal election. 

How to handle President Trump 2.0?

That is a big focus of European Union leaders meeting in Budapest today, according to the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who addressed the traveling press a few minutes ago.

To complicate matters the chair of the meeting is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a staunch Trump ally. 

Scholz emphasized that amid multiple crises, it was important that the EU remained "strong" and "united."

And the German chancellor has problems at home. Now head of a minority government, he's under pressure to call snap elections.

Before heading to the summit he stopped to take in the stunning Budapest skyline in the early morning sun. A moment of calm to reflect not just on Europe's destiny but his own.

Scholz spoke to reporters in Budapest early Friday but skirted mention of the past two days' upheaval in Berlin almost entirely. 

"Europe and the world faces large challenges," he began, going on to mention issues like Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine and the "constant danger of further escalation" in the conflict in the Middle East. 

"Therefore, it's necessary and right that the EU sticks together and is strong together," Scholz said. "That's what we discussed here, also in regard to the many changes that are taking place everywhere at the same time."

Like French President Emmanuel Macron on the previous day, Scholz noted Tuesday's election in the US and said Trump's victory had been a key part of discussions in Hungary. 

"We discussed the outcome of the US election. That's right and necessary because the US is Europe's most important ally," Scholz said. "We will continue to cooperate well with the future US president, and precisely the question of how to achieve that was a part of our discussion."

He went on to stress the importance of European defense spending and touted Germany's expectation of meeting NATO's 2% defense spending target for the first time this year. 

Scholz then addressed a series of other European issues under discussion such as plans on how to improve competitiveness and cut red tape, based on a report by guest Mario Draghi, a former Italian prime minister and European Central Bank head. 

Except for his mention of the "many changes" happening "at the same time," if he even meant to include developments in Berlin with that phrase, Scholz did not address his own government's newfound fragility or take any questions. 

Opposition Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz told reporters on Friday morning that after talks with Chancellor Olaf Scholz the previous day in Berlin they had "parted in dissent." 

"The chancellor did not find himself in a position to plausibly explain to me exactly why he really wants to only pose a vote of confidence in two months' time, and not as soon as next week," Merz said. 

He said he suspected that Scholz hoped to use the interim period to secure CDU/CSU votes for certain measures in parliament that he might then seek to "use for the purposes of the SPD election campaign."

Should his suspicions be accurate, Merz said, "that behavior is not worthy of the office and it's not behavior worthy of the situation facing the country."

He repeated his call for a "fast" move towards an early vote, with a debate on how to proceed scheduled in the Bundestag parliament later on Friday. 

He said that Scholz had a "powerful instrument in his hands" as the only person able to call the confidence vote, but he warned against "acting irresponsibly with this instrument." 

He recommended Wednesday of next week, when Scholz was already scheduled to brief parliament, as the ideal appointment for this and explicitly urged him to do so then.

The leader of Germany's opposition Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, who hopes to take political advantage of the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way traffic light coalition, says Europe needed to show strength during Donald Trump's second term as US president.

"Donald Trump is not impressed by weakness, only by strength, even opposition," Merz said. This, he added, would be how Europe could deal with the new government in Washington.

Merz and others want Scholz, from the center-left Social Democrats, to call for an immediate vote of confidence in his now minority government and snap elections. So far, however, Scholz is sticking to his call for a confidence vote in January.

Merz added that Germany must do more for its own security. He said the business model of importing cheaply, exporting expensively, and letting the United States pay for security "is now over."

"That's not so dramatic," he said. "We need to adjust to this, manage it, and take the necessary consequences." 

Germany's three-party coalition government of the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) unraveled during the course of Wednesday night and Thursday.

First, Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, whose allies in the FDP subsequently quit the coalition government — with one exception who instead quit the party. 

Scholz has since indicated that he intends to govern in the short term with a minority SPD-Green government relying on opposition votes for support to handle end-of-year business. He suggested a parliamentary vote of confidence in mid-January, followed by early elections around March. 

Opposition parties have, however, called for a confidence vote in parliament much sooner, potentially next week. A vote of no-confidence in the Bundestag sets a two-month timer on holding elections.

After staying in Berlin during the day, formally removing FDP ministers from the government, appointing replacements, and holding talks with opposition Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz, Scholz made a delayed departure to Budapest for the first major meeting of European leaders since Donald Trump's election victory in the United States. 

There they can discuss the sudden prospect of a change of government in Berlin, perhaps not long after the transition in Washington.

msh/sms (dpa, AP, Reuters, AFP)