Today’s Top Story

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner yesterday, collapsing his three-party governing coalition. He also announced that he would submit to a vote of confidence on Jan. 15 that he is widely expected to lose, paving the way for early federal elections, likely in March. (Washington Post)

Our Take

This collapse has been a long time coming. There have been tensions within Germany’s Ampelkoalition, or traffic light coalition—a reference to the three parties’ colors—essentially since it took power in 2021.

The latest sticking point, which ultimately led to the collapse, has been negotiations over next year’s budget, which currently faces large gaps. Scholz’s Social Democrats, or SPD, and the Greens favor relaxing the country’s “debt brake”—which limits the country’s public deficit and is enshrined in the constitution—in order to fund more public investment and aid to Ukraine. But the market-friendly Free Democrats, of which Lindner is the party leader, ardently opposed such a move.

The impasse led to political paralysis at a time when Germany’s economy has stagnated and is expected to shrink for the second year in a row in 2024. Germany is also particularly vulnerable to the EU-wide shift toward a tougher approach on trade with China, given its export-driven economy’s outsize reliance on the Chinese market.

With these mounting challenges, it’s likely that Germany needs the political clarification that elections could bring. But in the meantime, the Ampelkoalition’s collapse will only result in more uncertainty. Scholz now leads a minority government with little if any room to maneuver, accentuating the existing paralysis.

That leaves Berlin, historically a major force in intra-EU policy debates, greatly weakened at a time when the bloc urgently needs to address a range of economic and security issues, including relations with China, the green transition and Russia’s war in Ukraine. And the election on Tuesday of former U.S. President Donald Trump to a second term will only complicate matters, since he is broadly expected to downgrade relations with Europe and potentially cut off aid to Ukraine.

Normally, Germany and France would lead the EU’s response to major challenges like these, but both are now facing domestic political instability that has forced their leaders to turn inward. That leaves a gap for other EU forces to fill. In principle, that could mean greater freedom of action for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has pushed for Brussels to play a more influential role on the geopolitical stage. But the EU’s working mechanisms make it unlikely that Brussels might take on such a leading role unilaterally.

In the meantime, it is the far-right leaders of Italy and Hungary—PM Giorgia Meloni and PM Viktor Orban, respectively—that stand to gain the most from the developments of this week. Not only does a weaker Germany give them more room to push for their own agendas in intra-EU policy debates, but their ideological alignment with Trump means they will have more influence to set the tone of U.S.-EU relations when he returns to the White House in January.

Read all our recent coverage of Germany here.

On Our Radar

Russia is hosting a large forum this weekend with foreign ministers from African countries. The gathering in Sochi is Russia’s latest diplomatic effort to raise its profile on the continent.

Reports emerge weekly in the West about Russia’s growing influence in Africa, especially as more African countries have sought partnerships with Russia’s Africa Corps, formerly the Wagner Group. But as Duncan Money and Tycho van der Hoog wrote in June, Russia’s position in Africa is weaker and less profitable than reported, and Moscow’s purported political and economic gains are more doubtful if examined in greater detail.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi

Russia’s Position in Africa Isn’t as Strong as It Looks

June 3, 2024 | Reports emerge weekly that Russian influence in Africa is growing. In reality, Moscow’s position is weaker and less profitable than reported. Read more.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has denied wrongdoing amid a burgeoning influence-peddling scandal involving him and his wife that has seen his approval rating plummet to below 20 percent. Yoon faces allegations that he inappropriately influenced his party to choose a candidate for a parliamentary by-election on behalf of the founder of a polling agency who had conducted free opinion surveys for Yoon before he became president.

The scandal is just the latest to hit Yoon and his wife. Last year, a video emerged showing first lady Kim Keon Hee accepting a Dior bag as a gift. As Joel Atkinson wrote in April, that scandal only worsened Yoon’s standing ahead of legislative elections in which Yoon’s party fared poorly earlier this year.

South Korea’s Legislative Elections Leave Yoon Down, but Not Out

April 22, 2024 | South Korea’s legislative elections left President Yoon Suk Yeol with little room to maneuver. He has only himself to blame. Read more.

Cuba’s national power grid collapsed yesterday as Hurricane Rafael made landfall on the island’s southwest coast. The nationwide blackout comes less than three weeks after the grid collapsed for four days last month amid a fuel shortage. As we wrote then, the blackouts are the result of broader challenges facing Cuba’s economy.

On Tuesday, Mexico’s Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to a recently passed judicial overhaul that will force thousands of judges to stand for election. The challenge would have limited the constitutional change to only the justices on the Supreme Court. Read more about the judicial overhaul, which former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pushed through in his final weeks in office in September, in this column by Frida Ghitis.

Share this: