Henry Olsen
The smallest party in Germany’s tripartite government, the Free Democrats (FDP), have been angering their coalition allies with a series of recent policy pronouncements. It is clear their leader, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, is trying to revive the party’s flagging fortunes by provoking his more left-wing partners.
It is less clear how this turns out well for the FDP or the quest for a stable German government.
Lindner’s gambits have generally reinforced the FDP’s image of a pro-business, fiscally conservative party. He has insisted that German budgets adhere to the constitutional “debt brake” which limits annual deficit spending to 0.35 per cent of GDP unless the Bundestag declares an emergency.
The other coalition parties, the Social Democrats (SDP) and Greens, would like to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an excuse to waive the debt limit, but Lindner is having none of that. The result is that the significantly increased social and climate spending they want is off the table.
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