FDP reacts following alleged overt plot to break coalition long before it happened

 

By Sascha Meyer, dpa

 

BERLIN – Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) on Saturday downplayed reports that it has long been preparing to break away from the three-party coalition government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“We do not comment on internal meetings,” a spokesman for the liberal pro-business party told dpa.

Since the Constitutional Court last November declared the coalition’s supplementary budget for 2021 unconstitutional, an assessment of the FDP’s participation has taken place “repeatedly and in various rounds,” the spokesman added.

His comments come as Germany gears up for early elections, triggered by the collapse of the coalition after the FDP withdrew when Scholz sacked party leader Christian Lindner from his post as finance minister after months of wrangling over the 2025 budget.

“Of course, scenarios were considered again and again and opinions were gathered,” the FDP spokesman said.

Newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported the FDP had drawn up a plan to potentially scupper the coalition formed in 2021 made up of the Social Democrats, of which Scholz is a member, the Greens and the FDP.

There was even discussion of a “script for the fall of government,” according to Die Zeit.

Various scenarios were reportedly played out by the party’s top leadership since September, producing a detailed plan to exit the coalition.

The idea of an economic policy concept that would be unacceptable within the government had even been developed to this end, the newspaper reported.

A timetable for the withdrawal of the FDP ministers from the cabinet was also said to have been discussed.

In response to the reports, the FDP spokesman said that two options were proposed to Scholz by the FDP’s then Finance Minister Lindner at a meeting in early November.

These were “an agreement on a realignment of economic policy or the orderly termination of the coalition through a joint path to new elections,” he said.

“The result is known,” the spokesman added, apparently referring to Scholz’s decision to dismiss Lindner as a minister.

Early elections are now expected to be held in February.