Scholz and his minority government, which includes his own center-left Social Democratic Party and the Greens, will in the meantime remain in power in its full capacity.
But as Scholz does not have a majority in parliament — which is necessary to pass laws — and is expected to be voted out of office soon, he is considered a lame duck, at home and abroad.
How did we get here?
In early November, just hours after it became clear that Donald Trump had won the United States presidential election, Scholz appeared before cameras to announce that his battered tripartite alliance was collapsing in rather dramatic fashion over spending issues.
Scholz’s coalition — consisting of his SPD and the Greens on the left side of the political spectrum, and the fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party on the center right — was never a match made in heaven. Both the SPD and the Greens favor a strong social safety net and big investment to speed economic growth and the green energy transition. The FDP, on the other hand, believes in less government and curtailed spending. We wrote up the full analysis here.
What will Germany’s next government look like?
Merz’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, are currently leading in the polls by a wide margin, on 32 percent support. That is double what Scholz’s SPD, which is just behind the AfD in third place, is expected to receive.
With the conservatives set to win the anticipated February election, the big question is who will become their junior coalition partner and if that party (most likely the SPD or the Greens) will be strong enough to make a two-party coalition possible. Due to the rise of the AfD and the creation of the new populist-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), three-party coalitions — which are uncommon in postwar Germany and tend to be more volatile — might become the new normal.
