German Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is expected to be confirmed as Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s successor on Wednesday (24) after three parties worked out the details of a coalition to govern Europe’s biggest economy.
Scholz’s SPD (Social Democratic Party), center-left, is expected to announce at 15:00 local time (11:00 GMT) the details of a final round of negotiations with lawmakers from the Verdes and the FDP (Liberal Democratic Party).
The deal is expected to install Germany’s first triple coalition government since the 1950s. The main hurdle in the talks was disagreements over how to finance the transition to a green economy, according to people involved in the deal.
According to the Reuters news agency, the parties involved have agreed to commit to the elimination of the use of coal in the industry by 2030 and the end of gas-fired power generation by 2040.
While the Greens and the SPD are seen as natural partners within the center-left, the liberals have a more aggressive fiscal record and their program is closer to that of the conservatives in the CDU, party of Angela Merkel.
Confirmed, the coalition will end the 16 years of the center-right government led by Merkel. In what is likely to be her last cabinet meeting, the prime minister said goodbye to colleagues on Wednesday and received a gift tree from Scholz, according to people present at the meeting.
Scholz is expected to take over Germany in the worst Covid-19 outbreak to hit the country since the crisis began. Furthermore, he will command the richest country in Europe, struggling against the consequences of Brexit and the crisis on the border with Belarus.
During Merkel’s government, the Social Democrat amassed assets that took him from third in the election race to leader of the most voted party.
Scholz was responsible for setting up the aid program against the coronavirus crisis, which he presented as “the necessary bazooka” to secure jobs and support companies: a package worth 750 billion euros (BRL 4.7 trillion), shoes in a debt of almost 400 billion euros.
He also saw the approval in July of this year, at the G20 meeting in Venice, of the proposal for a global minimum tax, of which he was one of the main articulators.
In this federal function, he also did not escape prosecution: he is investigated on suspicion of failing to inspect the Wirecard financial institution, which went bankrupt. His election poll ratings did not budge after the case, prompting newspapers to call him a “Teflon candidate” in his titles.
Instead, his slogan “Scholz resolves” and his explicit forays into showing himself as the heir to the Merkel style of rulership gained more force. In one of them, she posed for a magazine cover, imitating the diamond-shaped hand gesture that is her boss’s trademark.
With a controlled personality, before being a candidate he had already been nicknamed by journalists “Scholz-o-mat”, an expression that identifies him with something as predictable as a washing machine.
Often described as “non-charisma” or “someone who has come out of an accountants’ congress”, he conveys more tranquility than boredom, however, and is far from being a dull technocrat with no other interests.
He is passionate about literature and an admirer of the Austrian novelist Robert Musil (1880-1942) and the German brothers Henrich (1851-1950) and Thomas Mann (1875-1955). He usually follows all editions of the Documenta contemporary art exhibition —which takes place every five years in Germany—and he is a cinema buff
.
