Krishnan Srinivasan | Political instability growing in Europe: Germany faces poll amid global churn

Two leading European Union countries are both under severe internal pressures -- France with its fourth Prime Minister in 2024, and Germany facing a snap poll that will take place in a particularly challenging global context. The proximate cause of Germany’s political difficulties was its support for embattled Ukraine, when Mr Scholz instructed finance minister Christian Lindner to ignore the debt brake so that the Chancellor could add another $15.7 billion for Ukraine in addition to the $8.4 billion already donated this year, possibly to compensate for not donating long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv. After the retirement of Chancellor Angela Merkel, an European leader and crisis manager for 16 years till 2021, Mr Scholtz’ personality is by contrast considered colourless and without impact; with a low popularity rating, the SPD seems headed for its worst-ever election result at 16 per cent while its Green coalition partners are polling even lower at 13 per cent. Germany is Europe’s biggest country and economy, but is now in decline, with recession for two years in succession due to multiple problems; the West-led Russian sanctions and loss of cheap energy, leaving nuclear energy seen as the only answer; and 40 per cent of the electorate comprising senior citizens and pensioners with public worries about inflation when German growth is only 0.2 per cent, the weakest in the G-7. The incoming German government will probably be a coalition of pro-EU, pro-Ukraine, centre-right and centre-left CDU and SDP, since all the historic major parties refuse to work with the increasingly popular Alternative for Germany, now lying second in the polls and which in September last year became the first far-right party to win a German state election since the Nazi era.