German President: I am prepared to call new elections

Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Thursday he was prepared to dissolve parliament and clear the way for new elections following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition, warning all parties to act responsibly.

Scholz said he would submit to a confidence vote in parliament after the departure of Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s Free Democrats left his government without a legislative majority. Only after a lost confidence vote does Steinmeier have the power to call new elections.

“Now is not the time for tactics and trickery, but for reason and responsibility,” Steinmeier told the news conference.

Germany’s opposition conservatives urged Chancellor Olaf Scholz to allow a vote of confidence immediately and hold elections in January, the day after his rocky three-way coalition collapsed and plunged the country into political chaos.

The coalition fell apart on Wednesday when years of tensions reached their peak in a row over how to plug a multi-billion-euro hole in the budget and how to revive Europe’s largest economy, which is headed for its second year of contraction.

The break-up came a day after the election of Republican Donald Trump to a second term as U.S. president and could hamper Europe’s ability to form a united response on issues ranging from possible new U.S. trade tariffs to Russia’s war in Ukraine and the future of the NATO alliance.

Scholz, of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), said he fired his finance minister from the fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP) for opposing his plan to suspend the debt brake again in order to raise more funds for Ukraine and the economy.

That led to the FDP withdrawing from the government, leaving Scholz’s SPD and the Greens. The chancellor said he would hold a confidence vote in January, which he would likely lose, triggering new elections by the end of March – six months ahead of elections originally scheduled for September.

Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition conservatives who are leading in nationwide polls, said this was too late and he wanted a vote of confidence immediately, “by the beginning of next week at the latest”.

Elections could take place in the second half of January next year, he said.