German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is following in Angela Merkel’s long footsteps.
The Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Free Democrats have agreed to form a new government in Germany, and on Wednesday afternoon they will present a new program for the German government.
And now it has been officially decided that the SPD candidate, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, will take the post of prime minister.
The SPD has become the largest party in German elections, and since September 26 has negotiated with the Greens and the liberal market party Friedmokratini (FDP) to form a majority government.
According to Schultz, the negotiations took place in a “friendly but intense atmosphere,” the writer writes AP.
An atmosphere full of confidence.
Schulz takes over from Angela Merkel, who has been German chancellor since 2005.
Even if the decision came now, the finance minister had long been slated to take over: Even before the election, German election forecasts suggested that Schulz was in the best position to become the new chancellor. In September, he also stayed our end by the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, on the strong election result.
Traffic Lights Coalition
The cooperation between the three parties is known as the Traffic Light Coalition, where there is talk of a red, green and yellow party. The NTB wrote that there are significant policy differences, especially between the Green Party and the liberal FDP.
The Green Party will lead the Climate Department and the State Department, while the Liberal Democrats will lead the Treasury. According to AFP, party leader Christian Lindner of the FDP is likely to become finance minister, while Annalena Barbock, one of the two leaders of the Green Party, will be Germany’s first foreign minister.
Her assistant, Robert Habeck, will lead a new climate ministry.
To phase out coal by 2030
Clearly, the FDP’s demand not to increase taxes or government spending was met, while the Greens and the SPD gained support for large-scale climate initiatives. The parties also agree that coal will be phased out by 2030, eight years earlier than originally planned. Germany relies heavily on coal, which accounts for about a third of the country’s energy needs.
In addition, both parties support the legalization of cannabis in regulated forms. Both of those promises count as victories for the Greens, who made significant headway in the election, according to the NTB.
The alliance also agreed, among other things, to increase freight transportation by 25 percent, and take at least 15 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Other points The new government agreement, among other things, says it aims to build 400,000 new apartments annually to combat the housing crisis, lower the minimum voting age to 16, and create a points-based immigration system to bring in qualified workers.
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Schulz, who has been finance minister and deputy prime minister since 2018, is expected to take over as Angela Merkel on Dec. 6. Before that time, the coalition agreement must pass through a referendum among all Green Party members and be approved by the national meetings of the other two parties.
If this happens, Merkel will lose the record as the country’s longest serving prime minister, by a few days.
To date, Helmut Kohl holds the record. He led Germany as prime minister from 1982 to 1998, and was behind German reunification when the former GDR entered the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990.
Not re-elected
News of the agreement between the three parties came at the same time that Merkel held what may be her last meeting with the government. On that occasion, Schulze gave a bouquet of flowers to the outgoing chancellor.
Government negotiations began on October 21. If Scholz were formally inaugurated according to plan, they would have spent 73 days forming a new government. After the 2017 elections, Merkel took 171 days to form a new government, because one side withdrew from the negotiations.
The SPD was the largest in the German elections, with 25.7% of the vote. Angela Merkel’s conservative party fell sharply and ended up in second place with 24.1 per cent. Greens ranked third with 14.8 percent. The FDP finished fourth with 11.5 percent, according to NTB.
Merkel did not run for re-election, and the party is now trying to find a new party leader and rise again after the worst election result ever.
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