Germany: Olaf Scholz to face confidence vote on December 16

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00:00The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is to face a vote of confidence in his government on the 16th

00:06of December, paving the way for new parliamentary elections in Germany as early as February next

00:12year. It comes after the collapse of Scholz's three-party coalition last week, at a time when

00:18the country's leaders have been grappling with ways to revive the German economy. Well, let's

00:24speak to Nick Holdsworth on the programme now. He's live in Berlin, he's our correspondent there.

00:29Nick, can you just explain to us really what's happened here,

00:32why are we seeing this vote of confidence?

00:36There's been a big row within the three-party coalition. Basically, Olaf Scholz is ruling

00:44Social Democrats along with the Greens, and the Free Democrats have been tussling over how to

00:51cope with Germany's financial problems. The country is entering a second year of

00:55very low economic growth, possibly could be going into recession, and the minority

01:02member of that coalition, the Free Democrats, their finance, their member, Christian Linder,

01:09who's the finance minister, he wanted to heavily cut public spending in order to reduce

01:15the debt load that Germany is under at the moment. Olaf Scholz and his partners in the

01:21Green Party disagreed, had a significant row about this just a few days ago, and that collapsed

01:28the coalition, and Olaf Scholz will, as a formality, go to Parliament on December 16th

01:35for a vote of no confidence. He's expected to fail that vote of no confidence, and then the

01:41German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will announce the disillusion of Parliament and new

01:47elections. The date put on those new elections, February the 23rd, which means that Germany will

01:53be going to the polls just a few weeks after President Trump is inaugurated as the 47th

02:00president in Washington, so the election campaign will be going on as that big development across

02:05the Atlantic takes place, which, of course, also has a bearing upon the German economy if

02:11President Trump brings in those threatened terrorists that he's been talking about.

02:15And give us a sense, then, it's obviously very early, but

02:18the kinds of policy issues that that election is likely to be fought on.

02:25Well, it's all going to be about the cost of living. The head of the

02:31Right of Centre Coalition, the CDU-CSU, Friedrich Merz, has already said that he plans to bring in

02:41reduce VAT on food and VAT on restaurant meals to give Germans a break on their basic necessities

02:49and some of their small luxuries in life. There will also be a discussion about whether or not

02:54to lift the spending break that they currently have, which is a balanced budget measure,

03:00which has proved quite controversial since it was reintroduced this year after a four-year hiatus

03:06during the Covid crisis. That's designed to force Germany to live within its means. But what that

03:12effect means is that Germans are struggling with rising costs and lower public spending,

03:18and that's causing strains in society. At the moment, it looks like the CDU-CSU will benefit

03:26from this collapse of the ruling coalition. They're on about 31.5 per cent in a poll that's

03:34been released today. The SPD, that's Chancellor Olaf Scholz's party, on just 15.5 per cent,

03:43and the Greens on 11.5 per cent. The big winners also so far look like to be the far-right AFD

03:49party. They're polling at 19.5 per cent, so they are quite likely to come in second place in the

03:55elections next February, and that could be a worry for the politicians who will be charged with

04:01forming a new government in Germany, because they certainly won't want to. Most parties won't want

04:06to work with the AFD. Nick Holdsworth for us live in Berlin there. Thanks very much.

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