The day after Trump's victory, Germany's coalition government is in crisis

Germany’s ruling coalition government is about to collapse. The unrest in Europe’s largest economy comes a day after Republican candidate Donald Trump won the US presidential election.

After a meeting of the three coalition parties on Wednesday evening, Chancellor Olaf Scholz expelled Christian Lindner, president of the coalition’s liberal Free Democrats and Finance Minister, from the government.

Before this incident, the leaders of the three coalition parties Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats held a two-and-a-half-hour discussion to find a way out of the budget crisis. Discussions mainly focused on how to finance the 2025 budget surplus and revive the battered German economy.

Recently, the ruling coalition has been divided over new budget and economic policy issues. Chancellor Schultz said at a press conference on Wednesday evening, “I was forced to take the step of expelling the finance minister to avoid damage to Germany.”

The chancellor said, Finance Minister Lindner offered affordable energy supplies, job security, investment bonuses, increased support for Ukraine. But Finance Minister Lindner gave no indication of goodwill. I did not want to hand over our country to such behavior of him.

Schultz said Finance Minister Lindner only cares about the interests of his party’s mostly wealthy supporters. He wanted to cut pensioners’ money, including proposing tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Chancellor has already requested German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to expel Lindner. He wants a vote of confidence in parliament in mid-January next year. Through this, the way of early voting in the country can be smooth. The next election in Germany is scheduled for September 28, 2025.

Chancellor Schultz announced that he would soon speak with the leader of the main opposition Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Marz.

Germany has a long-standing tradition of coalition government formation. After Germany’s 20th election on September 24, 2021, the parties negotiated among themselves for 10 weeks. Later, the three parties agreed to jointly run the government for four years.

Before the formation of the government, all the three parties in the alliance held a party conference and took the consent of the members in this regard. But before four years have passed, a crisis has arisen in the alliance.