German chancellor Olaf Scholz to address Bundestag for first time since government collapsed – Europe live
Key events
The opposition CDU/CSU alliance is comfortably ahead in the race to become the largest political force, according to the latest opinion poll from Forsa.
Based on a survey last week, it shows the CDU/CSU, far ahead of their nearest rivals, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, which looks set to become the main opposition.
As expected from last June’s European elections, Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens will shed votes, while the pro-business FDP could fail to meet the 5% threshold to enter parliament (although there are some exceptions to help smaller parties around this rule).
This means the CDU/CSU would be in the driving seat to form another coalition, while the AfD would be Germany’s main opposition.
You can see the results via Europe Elects here
German chancellor Olaf Scholz to address Bundestag for first time since government collapsed
Greetings, it’s midday in Berlin and German chancellor Olaf Scholz will soon address the Bundestag for the first time since his government collapsed, firing the starting gun on his election campaign.
For months Germany has been hamstrung by the weakness of its squabbling three-way coalition government, leaving allies lamenting that Europe’s most powerful country and largest economy was unable to take big decisions. That changed last week, when Scholz sacked his finance minister, the pro-business liberal leader, Christian Lindner, triggering the end of the coalition and early elections.
Germany will go to the polls on 23 February, following an agreement on Tuesday between Scholz’s Social Democrat party and the conservative CDU/CSU opposition.
Under the deal, Scholz will table a no-confidence vote on 16 December – one month earlier than he had originally wanted – paving the way for early elections.
Scholz is due to speak for 30 minutes from 1pm CET (noon GMT), followed by two hours of debate. We can expect to hear plenty from Friedrich Merz, the leader of the opposition CDU party, who is in poll position to become Germany’s next chancellor.
Robert Habeck, Scholz’s deputy, however, will not be at the debate, as his government plane has broken down and he is stuck in Lisbon (where he was attending a digital conference). As our Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly writes: “All this fits neatly of course into the narrative of a broken Germany”.
