German Government Collapses at a Perilous Time for Europe.

[elleng]

Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote, deepening the political turbulence in one of the continent’s most powerful economies.

https://www.nytimes.com/

[Dennis Donovan]

1. NYT: How to Understand the Collapse of Germany's Government, and What's Next (free link)

NYT - How to Understand the Collapse of Germany’s Government, and What’s Next (free link)

Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German Parliament, ending the unpopular three-party coalition government he has led since 2021.

By Christopher F. Schuetze
Reporting from Berlin

Dec. 16, 2024, 2:34 p.m. ET

Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany called a confidence vote in the German Parliament on Monday. He lost by a tally of 394-207, with 116 abstaining. That effectively ends the unpopular government he has led since 2021.

The vote means Germany will hold new federal elections in early 2025, most likely on Feb. 23. That’s about seven months earlier than originally planned.

/snip

[Irish_Dem]

2. Such a coincidence, democracies around the world collapsing.

Whatever could it mean?
What and who could be causing it?

[GreenWave]

3. It's almost like someone "put in" propaganda to do this.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Yep, someone(s) been stirring up a heap of trouble for western democracies.

[Emrys]

6. This isn't really a disaster, it's a life cycle feature of European politics

Proportional representation electoral systems commonly result in coalition governments of varying lifespans and degrees of success, and this particular development isn't at all surprising as cracks in Scholz's coalition have been all too evident for the last year or so, largely for reasons internal to Germany.

Better an election in February than Scholz's government staggering on through the early months of next year. Even Scholz seems to agree with that.

[Irish_Dem]

8. But connect the dots.

Canada is also having problems, and South Korea, Germany, and of course the Putin fascist takeover of the United States.

Ukraine a democracy was invaded by Putin and he is also making noises against NATO, a democratic country military alliance. China is being aggressive with democracies in the South China Sea and Pacific.

Everything is geopolitics right now.

And most people are missing this, the big picture.

[Emrys]

10. This particular development is just how European democracies generally work.

But if you want to read Putin into it, go ahead.

Putin might well prefer Scholz the prevaricator to his likely successor.

[Irish_Dem]

11. Geopolitics is THE single biggest story of the 21st century.

The political tectonic plates are shifting underneath our feet as we speak.

Sticking our heads in the sand will not make it go away.

We refuse to connect the dots at our own peril.

[Emrys]

12. If you connect too many dots too readily, you end up with an indecipherable mess

and unwarranted sky-is-falling headlines like the one in the OP, which you'll see a few of us have taken issue with downthread.

I'm in Scotland. Our government faces a vote of no confidence if it can't cobble together enough votes in our multi-party system, and if it loses that vote, we'll also see an earlier election than scheduled. I don't attribute that to Putin, I put it down to what happens in our sort of parliament and the conflicting pressures of trying to run a left-of-centre social democratic government in the current economic climate when we don't hold all the purse strings.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Not really a collapse. Scholz called the vote he knew he'd lose so that he could get the elections he wants. . . . nt

[Emrys]

7. Yup.

If I'd seen your reply, I could have saved myself some typing upthread!

[Seeking Serenity]

9. Agreed. Not as much as a "the sky is falling" story as the fear-merchant press wants you to believe

Fear is an easy sell, so they sell it.

[Initech]

13. Get ready for Supreme Overlord of Earth, Vladimir Putin.