The head of Germany’s opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, today called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to ask parliament for a vote of confidence immediately. He did so after Scholz’s three-way government coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) fell apart on Wednesday, and Scholz subsequently announced that he would ask the Bundestag for confidence in mid-January.
“The traffic light coalition is a thing of the past,” said Merz, who is also the official candidate for chancellor of the opposition conservative CDU/CSU union. The governing triple coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP was commonly referred to in Germany as the “traffic light” because of the colors used by the parties in their logos, i.e. red, yellow and green.
Merz said he would hold talks with Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier today. He wants to call on the chancellor to ask for a vote of confidence in the Bundestag at the beginning of next week at the latest. According to him, early elections could then be held in the second half of January. According to the timetable presented by Scholz on Wednesday evening after the collapse of coalition negotiations, early elections would be held at the latest at the end of March. There is speculation in the German media about March 9. Scholz wants to approve more laws by that time, which, according to him, cannot be delayed.
Alexander Dobrindt, the representative of the opposition Bavarian CSU in the Bundestag, also called on Scholz to urgently ask the parliament for a vote of confidence. “We cannot afford any Chancellor’s comas,” he said. CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder made the same statement on Wednesday.
Source: www.tyden.cz
