While Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) group in parliament confirmed its confidence in the chancellor, the Greens — with whom Scholz is currently ruling in a minority government — abstained so that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) couldn’t pull a surprise and try to prop him up.
A small number of the AfD’s 76 lawmakers had previously signaled they would vote for the chancellor as they feared his likely successor, Friedrich Merz from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), could plunge Germany into war by being a stronger backer of Ukraine against Russia than Scholz has been.
Scholz is to meet German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday afternoon, to whom he is expected to propose to dissolve the Bundestag, which the president can do within 21 days. An election would follow within another 60 days.
Ultimately, the decision on when to hold the election rests with Steinmeier. But after the heads of parliament’s major groupings had agreed to hold a federal election on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, Steinmeier is widely expected to follow that timetable.
The last time a German chancellor lost a vote of confidence was in 2005 under then SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, after which the CDU’s Angela Merkel came to lead Germany — and continued to do so for the following 16 years.
