Scholz admits submitting to a vote of confidence in Germany

The Prime Minister of Germany, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, admitted this Sunday (10) the possibility of bringing forward the vote of confidence in the country’s Parliament until before Christmas. The move would pave the way for early elections after the collapse of Scholz’s tripartite collision.

The chancellor had been under pressure from the opposition, which leads polls of voting intentions, to bring forward the plans of the government base, which intended to present the vote of confidence only in January.

Europe’s largest economy was thrown into political disarray last week with the collapse of Scholz’s coalition following disagreements over the 2025 budget.

The political crisis arrived in the country after the prime minister fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, belonging to the Liberal Party (FDP, in its German acronym). An exponent of the acronym, Lindner had been refusing to draw up a budget plan with greater public investment, a fiscal strategy chosen by the Social Democratic Party (SPD, in its German acronym) to boost economic growth.

“It is no problem for me to call a vote of confidence before Christmas,” said Scholz, in an interview with ARD. Scholz said a vote of confidence before Christmas would depend on Rolf Muetzenich, leader of the SPD in the Bundestag, and Friedrich Merz, of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), reaching an agreement on the appropriate time.

The speech expresses a moment of retreat by Scholz’s government, which last week spoke of presenting the vote of confidence only in January.

In Germany, the vote of confidence is a constitutional mechanism that allows the government to request a renewal of support in the Bundestag when it loses its majority, generally in situations of political crisis or legislative impasse. If the government fails to get the vote approved, it could be forced to resign or call new elections.

With the departure of the Liberal Party (FDP) from Olaf Scholz’s coalition, the government loses a significant part of its base in the Bundestag. Initially, Scholz’s coalition, made up of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, had an absolute majority in Parliament with 416 (SPD has 206 seats; the Greens have 118; and the FDP has 92 deputies).

With the departure of the FDP, Scholz is left with 324 deputies, which represents a relative majority, but not an absolute one, since the total number of seats in the Bundestag is 736.

Two leaders of the Green Party, which shares power in Scholz’s minority government, told Bild newspaper that the vote of confidence should be held in December, putting pressure on the chancellor to back down from his previous decision to leave it until January.