{"id":7762,"date":"2025-02-21T14:31:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T14:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/the-man-who-broke-germanys-government-wants-a-chance-to-fix-it\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T14:31:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T14:31:39","slug":"the-man-who-broke-germanys-government-wants-a-chance-to-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/the-man-who-broke-germanys-government-wants-a-chance-to-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Broke Germany\u2019s Government Wants a Chance to Fix It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It has been a rocky few months for Christian Lindner, and for the German political system that he has thrown into chaos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In November, Mr. Lindner, who was the federal finance minister, effectively toppled Germany\u2019s fragile government in a bid for his political life. He <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/06\/world\/europe\/germany-coalition-collapse-government.html?searchResultPosition=44\" title=\"\">goaded Chancellor Olaf Scholz into expelling him<\/a> from the ruling coalition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That set off a snap election. It means that Mr. Lindner is the primary reason the country will select a new parliament on Sunday, at a time of European and global upheaval in the early weeks of the new Trump administration, and not next fall as originally scheduled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner\u2019s move was a bid to save his party, which had slumped in the polls, from its association with an unpopular government. He was trying to avoid a temporary death sentence in federal politics. The question is whether it will work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the final week of the campaign, Mr. Lindner and his pro-business Free Democrats remain just under 5 percent of nationwide support in most polls. That is a crucial threshold in German politics. Score above 5 percent, and your party gets into parliament. Fall below it, and you are almost certainly out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And yet \u2014 because of how Germany\u2019s political system is structured \u2014 Mr. Lindner retains a chance to play a kingmaker role in the formation of the next government. He just needs to scrape together a little more support, somehow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have good cards,\u201d said Stefan Merz, a director at Infratest dimap, a polling firm in Berlin. \u201cBut it can\u2019t be ruled out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner is an outlier in German politics, where unflashy, stoic characters abound. He is fond of hunting and sports cars, with an aversion to autobahn speed limits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner\u2019s campaign declined interview requests from The New York Times. In an interview last fall with the podcast Hotel Matze, shortly before he initiated the end of the governing coalition, he mused about his fans and detractors alike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThose who like you say, \u2018The last hope of bourgeois politics in Germany, the last free-market economist in politics,\u2019\u201d Mr. Lindner said. Critics, he added, call him a government debt fetishist, a \u201cneoliberal exploiter and misanthropist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI deal with it in a relaxed manner,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner\u2019s grandparents were bakers. His parents divorced when he was <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/de\/podcast\/christian-lindner-was-hast-du-dir-im-ampelstreit-vorzuwerfen\/id1168045239?i=1000675639336\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a young boy<\/a>. His mother taught him to prioritize financial independence. From a young age, he yearned to move fast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A video <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w0rL6Ju9H2Q\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on YouTube<\/a> captures a television show for young people recorded in 1997 in which an 18-year-old Mr. Lindner, wearing a suit with a monstrous cow-patterned tie, talks about the advertising business he had started with a friend. It earned him enough to buy his first Porsche by the age of 20.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was also a political prodigy. Mr. Lindner joined the Free Democrats, or F.D.P., a neoliberal party that favors low taxes on business and high earners \u2014 and no speed limits on the highway \u2014 at age 16. At age 34, he became the youngest chairman in party history, and he brought it back from the political wilderness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After failing to win 5 percent of the vote in Germany\u2019s 2013 elections, the Free Democrats spent four years out of parliament. Mr. Lindner brought the party back in 2017, though he pulled out of negotiations to join a ruling coalition with Angela Merkel\u2019s conservative Christian Democrats and the liberal Green Party. \u201cIt <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/CvaIETOT8KA\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">is better not to govern than to govern wrongly<\/a>,\u201d Mr. Lindner said at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2021, Mr. Lindner helped the Free Democrats score 11 percent of the vote, in part by leading a charge against government restrictions on daily life and economic activity. He joined Mr. Scholz\u2019s Social Democrats and the Greens in a so-called \u201ctraffic light\u201d coalition. It was always a troubled partnership, but it worsened as Germany\u2019s economy stagnated and the government\u2019s approval ratings sank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A fissure opened: Mr. Scholz and the Greens wanted to relax a limit on government borrowing \u2014 known as the debt brake \u2014 in order to juice economic growth. Mr. Lindner refused.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He also saw ominous signs in the polling. All the ruling parties had lost support, but of the three, only the Free Democrats had slipped below 5 percent. His core of support remains \u201cwealthy entrepreneurs in West Germany,\u201d said Marcel Fratzscher, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner hatched a plan to collapse the government, in hopes of saving his party. Publicly, it began with a leaked document in which he demanded swift changes from the Green Party\u2019s economy minister, Robert Habeck, and Mr. Scholz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His requests included tax cuts, regulatory relief and the relaxation of some climate goals that he said were pushing energy prices higher. He was daring Mr. Scholz to fire him. On the day after President Trump won another term in the United States, Mr. Scholz obliged, forcing early elections in the process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Days later, Die Zeit newspaper revealed that Free Democratic leaders had spent weeks preparing to break with the coalition partners, including drafting a script for it. Mr. Lindner never denied the report. He explained that his party simply was seeking <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.handelsblatt.com\/politik\/deutschland\/christian-lindner-es-gibt-in-unserem-sozialstaat-eine-erhebliche-effizienzreserve\/100087565.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">an economic turnaround<\/a> in order <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.handelsblatt.com\/politik\/deutschland\/christian-lindner-es-gibt-in-unserem-sozialstaat-eine-erhebliche-effizienzreserve\/100087565.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cto make Germany successful again.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a blistering statement defending his firing, Mr. Scholz said Mr. Lindner cared only for his base electorate and for \u201cthe short-term survival of his own party.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The ensuing political fallout has been shadowed by the opening weeks of Mr. Trump\u2019s administration, including threats of tariffs on European exports and a pullback of America\u2019s military security blanket that has protected Germany since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lindner has tried frantically to pull the Free Democrats above the 5 percent line. In an early bid to grab attention, he posted on the social media platform X that Germany needed more disruptive thinking like the billionaire Elon Musk has. Mr. Musk instead endorsed a different party \u2014 the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD \u2014 parts of which have been deemed extremist by German intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Undaunted, Mr. Lindner continues to preach tax cuts and deregulation, to defend Germany\u2019s constitutional curb on government debt, and to slam his former government partners for their management of the economy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mainstream parties have said they will not invite the AfD into a government. So Mr. Lindner\u2019s party may still make a possible coalition partner for the poll-leading Christian Democrats and their chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz. It could be a valuable one if the returns on Sunday are especially fractured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But for now, Mr. Merz, who was a guest at Mr. Lindner\u2019s wedding, is not tipping his hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As Mr. Lindner hovered a point below 5 percent this month, Mr. Merz was asked in an interview with German media about Mr. Lindner\u2019s Free Democrats. \u201cFour percent,\u201d he said, \u201cis four percent too much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/21\/world\/europe\/lindner-germany-election.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been a rocky few months for Christian Lindner, and for the German political system that he has thrown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2133,1337,2135,250,114,1439,861,511,2887,1344,2888,2889,338,102,2134,1343,510,1346,469,1164,219,2553,1345,660,113],"class_list":["post-7762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-alternative-for-germany","tag-christian-democratic-union-germany","tag-christian-w","tag-content-type-personal-profile","tag-donald-j","tag-economic-conditions-and-trends","tag-elections","tag-elon","tag-free-democratic-party-germany","tag-friedrich","tag-green-party-germany","tag-habeck","tag-international-trade-and-world-market","tag-legislatures-and-parliaments","tag-lindner","tag-merz","tag-musk","tag-olaf-1958","tag-politics-and-government","tag-polls-and-public-opinion","tag-regulation-and-deregulation-of-industry","tag-robert","tag-scholz","tag-taxation","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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