The German Chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, dismissed his Finance Minister, the liberal leader Christian Lindner, this Wednesday after proposing to call early elections in the face of the serious crisis facing the coalition of Social Democrats and Greens. and liberals, facing a possible rupture.
Lindner is the leader of the FDP, one of the three parties that make up the “traffic light coalition” with the SPD and the Greens. The three parties have been part of the German executive since 2021, although their stability has eroded in recent months and rumors of possible elections have increased.
Lindner’s departure leaves this coalition on the verge of falling apart. Representatives of the three parties met this Wednesday to discuss the reasons which had separated their positions during this period, mainly the drafting of the new budget, as well as the direction of economic policy. In this context, Lindner had put on the table the need for new elections, as reported by several German media. Scholz rejected this proposal and fired the minister.
As reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Scholz had demanded that Lindner lift his veto on the opening of his hand on the German public debt, which the leader of the liberals, who has for years defended an economic policy of debt control and of the deficit, to the detriment of public spending.
