Why Germany’s coalition is back at war (with itself)

BERLIN — Europe’s “anchor of stability” has broken loose. 

Just weeks after Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that his fractious three-way coalition had buried the hatchet, declaring “we must not be preoccupied with ourselves” at a time of global turmoil, the civil war within his government is back with a vengeance. 

One might expect to find the trigger for the alliance’s conflict in Middle East policy or its stance toward Russia. In fact, the latest fight concerns a subject even more top of mind for many Germans: Das Auto.

In contrast to their coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP) — the pro-business party that governs alongside Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens — want to encourage Germans to fire up their Volkswagens and BMWs more, not less, by making parking in downtowns free and limiting bike lanes. 

The push is part of what increasingly looks like a guerilla campaign by FDP leaders in recent days to trigger its coalition partners with a string of controversial initiatives, including proposals to cut welfare and abolish the federal ministry that handles foreign aid.   

To understand the FDP’s provocative turn, one needn’t look further than the polls. The party, which has been at odds with its partners ever since the coalition took office, has seen its popular support evaporate to just 5 percent, the threshold for entry into parliament. 

The FDP — together with the rest of the coalition — is expected to take a thrashing in regional elections in three eastern German states next month. The latest polls suggest the party won’t get enough votes to win seats in any of the state legislatures. The SPD and Greens are also struggling in those states.

A major loss by the coalition parties in the state elections would renew questions about the viability of Scholz’s coalition, especially if the FDP continues its agitation campaign. 

Speculation has swirled in Berlin for months that the party could try to resuscitate its flagging fortunes ahead of national elections next year by unraveling the coalition, either by pulling out or provoking its collapse. While it’s debatable that either course would ultimately help the FDP, the status quo doesn’t look much better. 

Whatever the party’s long-term strategy, there’s no question that it has decided to ignore Scholz’s calls for détente and go on the attack by ignoring its partners’ red lines. 

Ruining Scholz’s summer holiday

The party’s summer disruption campaign began last week. In an interview with German public television, party leader Christian Lindner, who is also Germany’s finance minister, cast doubt on a budget compromise that he, Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens had reached in early July. 

The July agreement was preceded by a months-long standoff, with Lindner, a fiscal hawk, refusing to accede to demands from his partners to relax Germany’s strict budget rules. Yet in the interview, Lindner suggested the deal was in peril, saying that “there are constitutional risks and questions of concrete implementation.”

In an interview with German public television, party leader Christian Lindner, who is also Germany’s finance minister, cast doubt on a budget compromise that he, Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens had reached in early July. | Omer Messinger/Getty Images

Scholz was so enraged by Lindner’s foray that he did the unthinkable for most Germans and interrupted his summer holiday. Without mentioning Lindner by name, Scholz said it was “a mystery” how anyone could question the constitutionality of the budget based on the legal assessments the government had received. 

Wolfgang Kubicki, a senior FDP parliamentarian and vice chairman of his party, shot back, saying that it was “a mystery to the FDP how reckless the SPD and Greens are with the constitution.” 

That was only the beginning. Over the weekend, the FDP opened a new front with its pro-car push. 

“We don’t need an anti-car agenda with ever-more limits and bans,” Bijan Djir-Sarai, general secretary of the Free Democrats told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “The automobile remains an essential part of individual mobility and freedom.” 

In presenting the FDP’s new five-point, pro-car strategy, Djir-Sarai lamented that the Greens would “never understand the concept” of freedom and the automobile. 

The FDP plan, which reads as if it were written to troll the Greens, includes proposals to offer free parking in inner cities, limit bike paths and pedestrian zones, and lower the driving age to 16 from 18. 

Predictably, the Greens’ response was fast and furious.  

“The notion that more traffic in downtown areas will spur the economy is a dangerous delusion,” said Belit Onay, Hanover’s Green mayor. 

Djir-Sarai’s car-rights campaign wasn’t an outlier. Just hours later, Christian Dürr, the leader of the FDP’s parliamentary group, called for welfare cuts to ease pressure on the budget, a no-go for the SPD. 

Then came the biggest bombshell of all: a proposal, first revealed by POLITICO’S Berlin Playbook, to save money by doing away with Germany’s development ministry, which administers foreign aid. 

Under the plan, which was outlined in an internal parliamentary paper, the ministry would be folded into the foreign office to save money, a structure common in many Western countries. Nonetheless, for both the SPD and the Greens, the move was yet another unnecessary provocation.

“It’s quite obvious that this coalition has major problems finding common ground,” Habeck told the Berlin Playbook podcast this week.

Green MP Ottmar von Holtz called the development ministry proposal in particular “ridiculous” and accused the FDP of trying to eliminate Germany’s commitment to peace initiatives and humanitarian aid. “It’s difficult to take this seriously,” he told POLITICO. 

By the look of things, he may not have to for much longer.