Frigid air over the German government. And not only because it is snowing all over Central Europe these days, but also because the delicate internal balances within Olaf Scholz's Ampelkoalition seem to be increasingly subject to stresses that are difficult to cushion. Let us start at the beginning. And from a certainty: the current German government will not be reconfirmed, nor will the chancellor; all three governing parties, SPD, Greens and Liberals (FDP) know this very well, as does Scholz himself, according to polls the most unpopular chancellor ever.
A disappointing government
Despite the fact that the government program presented to the voters before the vote is being fulfilled on the whole, the critical issues that have arisen in the meantime (conflict in Ukraine, energy crisis, commodities crisis, new further migration crisis) have been handled by the German government in a way that the electorate finds unsatisfactory. In addition to the issues just mentioned, which are certainly poorly presented and even worse handled, weighing like a boulder on the electorate's liking of the government and chancellery is the European green deal, a program that the Scholz government is pursuing with almost religious zeal, combining European measures, strongly advocated by Dutch green hawk Frans Timmermans (former European climate commissioner), with additional national laws to "protect" the environment.
Unfavorable polls and rising tensions
The closure of Germany's last three nuclear power plants, despite the energy crisis resulting from the ongoing war in Ukraine, was, in particular, one of the most controversial measures, weighing especially heavily on the industrial system of Europe's locomotive. Entrepreneurs and big industry, which have always been close to the CDU but had, albeit cautiously, supported the government early on, are already in turmoil. Within the government there are growing misgivings on the part of the liberals of the FDP, the smallest party among the three forming part of the Traffic Light Coalition, and judged from the outset to be the weakest link in the governmental structure. Always an expression party of the upper classes and the city's bourgeoisie, the liberals, who express among others Finance Minister Christian Lindner, are experiencing great apprehension. According to the latest INSA polls released by Bild Zeitung, Lindner's party would, at present, be at 6 percent, a percentage substantially halved from the 11.5 percent achieved at the last federal elections.
FDP unrest
The downward trend in support for the FDP has, by the way, never stopped since it decided to join Scholz's caravan. The risk that the FDP will come in the next federal election below 5 percent, that is, remaining outside the Bundestag, is real. Well-informed rumors claim that within the Liberal coalition they are already at the count, with a collection of signatures among card-carrying members that started two weeks ago and would aim to see how many among the Liberals would agree to continue supporting the government or, on the contrary, would like to get out. If the FDP withdrew its support for Scholz, it goes without saying, the government would fall, as there are in fact insufficient SPD and Green MPs to continue governing. It should be remembered, among other things, that in Germany the role of the President of the Republic is much more defiladed and symbolic than the role played, in our country, by the Quirinal Palace. The President of the Republic Franz Steinmeier, therefore, could do little in the face of a governmental coalition that no longer wants to be together.
A government united by fear of sovereignists
The most effective glue for the government, however, comes from the right. Indeed, the national conservatives of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) would be at an all-time high in support, even at 22 percent. The party of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla would, therefore, be the second-largest national party, with a strength that would make the formation of a new government without it very complicated, given and considering also the now certain dissolution of the radical left-wing party Die Linke, whose parliamentary group has dissolved by failing to survive the schism caused by its former pasionaria Sarah Wagenknecht. It is likely that it is precisely the terror of coming to terms, now, with the sovereignist right that is causing the government to grit its teeth and pull through despite all the difficulties. The government's hope is that, between now and the next federal elections, scheduled for the fall of 2025, AfD's boom will at least partially deflate, perhaps with the help of the judiciary and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), which for years have been threatening AfD with the stick of outlawing it because of the party's allegedly unconstitutional nature.
Defections in sight?
Much, as already mentioned, will depend, however, on the FDP. Once out of parliament, in fact, it would be arduous for the Liberals to re-enter it, given and considering also that, in Germany, governments tend, unlike in Italy, to complete their entire term. Considerations such as these could, at least theoretically, suggest to the FDP an exit from the government, or at least an outside endorsement, to try to salvage the few remaining consensuses. But frustration is not lacking even among the Greens, whose extremist wing, close to extremist movements such as Letzte Generation and Ende Gelände, has been rumbling for months now against the so-called responsibility flaunted by the party leadership, which in the face of the closure of Germany's nuclear power plants has had to swallow, at the same time, the reopening of some coal-fired plants.
The disasters of the green deal
But the green-themed troubles do not stop there. It was news just a few days ago that the German government had to intervene, perhaps illegally, with more than ten billion euros of federal funds to save from bankruptcy none other than Siemens Energy, the flagship of Teutonic industry, whose colossal investments in off-shore wind power, strongly advocated by the current government, ended in disaster.
Not just Berlin: The Hague, Wien, Bern, Bratislava.
And the trend is certainly not coincidental. Similar alarm bells are ringing for governments in countries around Germany. In the Netherlands, as is well known, the PVV sovereignists of Geert Wilders have largely triumphed over his opponents, putting a serious mortgage on the next government in The Hague. In Switzerland, the very recent elections rewarded the right-wing conservatives of the SVP-SVP-PPS and severely penalized the environmental parties, while in Austria the national-conservatives of the FPÖ, AfD's European allies, are widely first in the polls, holding off the Social Democrats and the Populars by more than ten points, and seriously aiming for the chancellorship in the upcoming elections, which could install a national-conservative chancellor in Vienna for the first time. In neighboring Slovakia, Robert Fico's sovereignist and anti-sanctionist Social Democrats have won over the pro-European parties and gone into government with the radical right. All this without even mentioning France, where Marine Le Pen currently appears favored in the presidential election.
A precarious future
The climate in Berlin is one of substantial siege, both from within, with public opinion now weary of dogmatic environmentalism and sanctions against Russia, and from without, with Europe in danger of filling up with governments hostile to the "Traffic Light"'s immigrationist and green progressivism. In 2023 Scholz has succeeded, once again, in escaping the bitter end. About 2024, however, bets are open.
Research fellow at the Machiavelli Center. A philosophy scholar, he has been working for years on the topic of the revaluation of nihilism and the great German Romantic philosophy.
Italiano 
English
Scrivi un commento