Germany’s biggest political parties have agreed on a timetable leading to an early general election on February 23, a source in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) party said Tuesday.
The agreement was reached at a time Germany is mired in a deep political crisis, between the parliamentary groups of the centre-left SPD and the main conservative opposition CDU/CSU, the source told AFP.
The compromise deal comes days after Scholz’s three-way coalition collapsed with the withdrawal of the smallest party, the liberal and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).
The political turmoil has hit as Europe’s biggest economy is set to shrink for a second year in a row and amid heightened geopolitical volatility, with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The agreed election date would mean Germany will be in the middle of its campaign when Donald Trump is inaugurated as US president on January 20.
Scholz, who wants to run again, initially suggested an election in late March but came under pressure from the CDU as well as his own Greens coalition partners to speed up the process.
The CDU is riding high in opinion polls and its leader Friedrich Merz had been pushing for an election as early as possible.
A recent poll found that two-thirds of voters also wanted an election sooner rather than later.
The February date would force politicians to conduct their campaigns in the dark and cold of winter, when voters will be less enthusiastic to flock to outdoor events than during the usual campaign time in high summer.
The date will be officially determined after Scholz calls a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament, which under the new agreement would now have to be in December.
If, as expected, he loses the vote, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will have 21 days to dissolve parliament, and elections will then have to be held within the next 60 days.
“People are very nervous and don’t know where the country is going,” CDU general secretary Carsten Linnemann told the ZDF broadcaster on Tuesday.
He added that once there was more clarity on the timetable, “things will calm down and we can go into the election campaign”.
Since the FDP’s withdrawal last week, Scholz’s centre-left SPD and the Greens have carried on in a minority government that has to seek opposition support to pass any laws.
The three ideologically diverse parties had been governing together since 2021, the first time that a tripartite coalition had been tried at a federal level in Germany.
But mounting differences over economic and fiscal policy came to a head last week when Scholz fired the rebellious FDP Finance Minister Christian Linder, prompting the party to leave the government.