The face of the German Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who appeared in public this Monday with an eye patch and bruises, is a visual metaphor for the state of his three-way government coalition with the green party Die Grünen and the liberal party FDP. Scholz, who had an accident while playing sports and had to suspend his schedule on Sunday, returned to the German capital on Monday bruised, just like his Traffic Light Government. Problems pile up. The first major obstacle is voter confidence. Polls predict a fall of all three ruling partieswhile in the opposition the Christian Democrats of La Unión (CDU/CSU) did not reach 30% and the ultranationalists of Alternative for Germany did not stop gaining followers and would be the second force.
The main problems that concern Germans are the economy, immigration, climate change and social inequality. In the first of the complexes, the Scholz Government faces an economy in recession, with a growing number of companies that have closed their factories in the country or want to relocate them, especially those whose energy needs are greater. By doing without Russian gas as a result of the war in Ukraine, the country has been forced to import much more expensive gas, thus putting the competitiveness of such production in danger. In August, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced that one in three companies consider outsourcing production or reducing it, a value that would be double that measured just twelve months earlier. In particular, these would concern companies with more than 400 employees, that is, the backbone of the German and European economy. Such is the fear that the Government is considering introducing a subsidized price for electricity for companies, which would serve to maintain industries in the country until renewables have the capacity to produce at a cheap price. Germany has asked Brussels for permission to eventually introduce this measure.
Immigration, the second issue that worries Germans, is present throughout the country. Scholz already knew that European solidarity works only sometimes. According to official figures, around a million Ukrainian refugees have arrived since the start of the war in 2022. Already in 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to allow the entry of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Syrian war and waited without a response for a European distribution. that never came. Now, with the Ukrainian war, Germany faces a similar problem, with a reception system that is more guaranteed than other countries on the continent.
Its coalition partners have been waiting for weeks for the chancellor to make a quick decision regarding the Taurus-type cruise missiles that the country could send to Ukraine. «What is the Federal Chancellor waiting for, for God’s sake? He is the only one who is hindering this decision within the coalition. “He is irresponsible,” wrote the leader of the Bundestag Defense Committee angrily. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Sunday night on platform X, until now known as Twitter. The FDP representative criticized the cautious attitude of the chancellor, who knows that more than half of the population is against the sending of said missiles, according to a survey commissioned by public television ARD in mid-August. 52% would be against compared to 36% in favor. The main obstacle for the SPD is, however, and according to Scholz’s own statements, the fear that Ukraine will use these weapons to attack Russian territory.
The budget for 2024 is another of the issues that has Scholz and the rest of his Government on their minds. On Monday of last week the coalition reached an agreement to introduce a mechanism to help combat child poverty. However, spending cuts are planned in virtually all ministries except Defense. This is because the liberal Finance Minister Christian Lindner wants to re-apply the constitutional debt brake, despite the exceptional circumstances represented not only by the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis, but above all by high inflation.
To try to improve his image Scholz has dedicated himself to touring German cities and towns in which he holds public conversations with the population. The problem with that strategy is that The chancellor has a very special humor that his citizens do not find so funny. On one occasion she made a joke with the price of gas and on another with the refugees, jokes that instead of giving her more popularity could be taking it away from her. One of the jokes: “In Brussels I joked that here in Germany we must have a gigantic beach, because more refugees arrive than in the entire Mediterranean.” And the other supposed joke: “A person told me the other day, Mr. Scholz, I just changed my electric oven for a gas one,” and he laughed to himself. Both pranks were highly criticized.
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