German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called a meeting of his governing coalition last Sunday night to try to calm the tensions between his government partners, which now threaten to turn into a real crisis.

Conflicts of late between the FDP’s liberals, environmentalists and the chancellor’s Social Democrats, who form the governing coalition, have multiplied: they range from the climate to the financing of the rearmament of the German army, from transport infrastructure to the budget 2024.

The mutual and growing loss of trust between the three partners is now a cause for concern, in addition to delaying the implementation of important plans for Europe’s largest economy.

Burning government?

“Everywhere one looks, one sees fire in the government,” Der Spiegel magazine summarized, documenting “disagreements over priorities,” “cross-blaming of everything,” an inability to “find compromises.”

“The house of the coalition is on fire,” the Bild tabloid headlined.

Internal tensions spilled over into Brussels, where Berlin, to the general consternation of its partners, blocked a last-minute regulation to cut to zero CO2 emissions from new cars sold in the EU.

A compromise solution was finally found last Saturday.

Last night the venture looked like collective psychotherapy by the tripartite coalition without precedent in Germany. Results were not expected before today at the earliest.

“Citizens expect the coalition to deliver results,” warned Social Democrat official Dirk Wiese, speaking to Spiegel.

The aim was to restore order and stop the free fall in popularity of the coalition parties, as the main right-wing opposition is now well ahead in practically all opinion polls, while the AfD (far-right) is said to be third party in many of the polls. investigations.

Liberals hold the helm of the finance ministry and see themselves as guarantors of fiscal discipline. Christoph Maier, an FDP official, accused the other two coalition parties of an “addiction to public spending” speaking to the Funke group’s newspapers.

“Sometimes you have to grab the bottle from the alcoholic’s mouth,” he snapped.

The “progress”, the “obstruction”…

On climate, the Greens and the FDP have been openly airing their differences for weeks — on internal combustion engines in cars, on the phasing out of oil and gas-burning building heating burners, on the priority to be given to investment on railways or highways…

It was the environmentalist Minister of Economy and Climate, Robert Hambeck, who set fire to the gunpowder. “Only one party represents progress, the others are hindering it,” the second-in-command lashed out at the government ranks on Tuesday.

The holder of a doctorate in philosophy blamed the government for not fulfilling “adequately” the government’s mission to “do something for the world, for Germany” and for the climate.

The country met its 2022 target for limiting CO2 emissions — partly due to the energy crisis — but still has a long way to go if it wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2045.

…and Putin

Mr Hambeck blamed his liberal partners in particular for stalling his plan, leaked to the press, to ban as early as 2024 the installation of new boilers burning oil or gas in buildings.

The tension escalated to such an extent that FDP vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki went so far as to say, before apologizing, that Mr Habeck shared with Russian President Vladimir Putin “the belief that the state, the leader, the chosen one, knows better than the people what is best for him”.

The SPD claims to restore calm. But the chancellor, who has a reputation for putting aside, not facing setbacks head-on, seems unable, a year and a half after taking office, to control his increasingly nervous partners.

“Leadership is needed more than ever and Olaf Solz is not showing it, he is letting things happen,” was the scathing comment of Carsten Linnemann of the right-wing opposition.