Why the German government collapsed and what to expect now

By Katharina Karcher, Senior Lecturer with a research focus on political violence, University of Birmingham

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has sacked his finance minister Christian Lindner escalating a long conflict in the German government and ultimately causing the fragile coalition between Social Democrats, Greens, and the Free Democratic Party to collapse. For once, Scholz, often mocked as a robotic speaker without emotion, appeared to be angry – even resentful.

In a speech, Scholz blamed Lindner for the government’s collapse, and portrayed his former finance minister as petty, uncompromising and untrustworthy.…

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