The Duran Podcast - German Chancellor Scholz struggles to keep coalition together

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

German Chancellor Scholz struggles to keep coalition together The Duran: Episode 1780

All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is happening in Germany. An interesting speech from Olo Schultz. He basically says that it's Russia that cut off the gas supplies to Germany. Not me. It's all Russia's fault. And by the way, there's some news that the third party of the coalition, they're going to actually hold a vote or a referendum. to see if they want to stay in the traffic-like coalition. Schultz, the Greens, and I think it's, what's the party?

The FPD, the, the, it's the liberal democratic party of Germany. The liberal, yeah. The liberal party. I think that's an interesting development. Anyway, what are your thoughts about what's going on in Germany? I mean, it was an astonishing speech. It was one of the, possibly the single most mendacious speech that a German leader has given since the end of the Second World War. And that is saying something.

I mean, well, other German leaders have tended to be reasonably honest with their voters, but this was an astonishing one. I mean, first of all, he must know, he must also know, by the way, that most people in Germany also know that it was not the Russians who took the decision to cut off gas supplies to Germany. It was Germany and the Western powers that launched an economic war against Russia, and it was Schultz himself who took the decision to suspend operation of the Nord Stream pipeline. And it was Schultz and Harbeck and all of those people who last year took the decision

that Germany would be weaned away completely from reliance upon Russian gas and that this was to happen by the end of last year. So these were decisions made in Berlin by Harbeck and by Schultz himself. So here's, I mean, he's straightforwardly lying. That's the only word I can give to this. Now, the big question is why is he doing this? And it's a transparent sign that he's got his back against the war. politicians only do this sort of thing when they become desperate.

And his position is becoming increasingly desperate. First of all, he clearly assumed that the war would end in victory sometime in 2022. There would be a new government in Moscow, presumably. The gas would resume flowing. The Germans would have their friends in positions of power in Moscow. and all would be well. I mean, he clearly assumed that. Haubeck probably assumed that,

and that this would only be a temporary problem until the terrible man and the people of the Kremlin went away. And, of course, it hasn't turned out that way. German business is now becoming finally, they're starting finally to speak out. And they're saying that the energy costs are now so high in Germany,

that it is no longer makes economic sense for them to maintain production in Germany itself, the German chemical industry in particular, is now thinking of relocating to other places, including the United States, and that process of deindustrialisation

that we talked about is now underway in Germany. And remember that the Social Democrats, historically, to a much less extent today, but historically were the party of the organised working class in Germany. They're still largely backed by the official trade unions in Germany. The trade unions must be getting increasingly alarmed by the fact that industrial jobs in Germany are disappearing. And that must be increasing pressure on Schultz.

But he's now got another problem. which is that he was trying to hold everything together through this complex web of financial devices and budget devices and instruments that we were talking about. We've already discussed it in previous programmes. The Constitutional Court has told him that that is unconstitutional. Now, he took a decision that despite what the German constitutional, Constitutional Court said he would lift the deficit limit in Germany, on the grounds that Germany

is experiencing an economic emergency and run, therefore, a bigger budget deficit. Now, the free Democrats, his coalition partner, who control the finance ministry, are horrified by this. They'd made it absolutely clear that for them, it is. a red line. They have to worry that if the coalition collapses and there are new elections, then they might, because they were wise enough to get into this coalition, they might face an electoral wipeout. So they've called this referendum in order to try to win support from their base, to try to get people to agree that the Free Democrats should pull out of the coalition. To me, that now looks all but inevitable, in which case the current coalition will collapse.

Elections. Well, in Germany. If that happens, or will we get other parties to join? Well, this is it. In Germany, it's not always, it doesn't always follow that because one government collapses, elections necessarily follow. It is not impossible that Schultz will reach over to Friedrichmann. and the CDU and try to rebuild a grand coalition

bringing together the SPD, the CDU, the CSU and the Greens because it's becoming absolutely clear now that if there was an election tomorrow in Germany the big winner would be the IFDAEFDAE. And that is something that terrifies all of these parties. But bear in mind, if you cobble together a grand coalition like that, then you leave the IFDAE

in sole opposition, the left-wing party, D'Linka, has now dissolved itself, by the way, in light of Sarah Wagnernerk's decision to create a new left-wing party. So the IFTA is the only remaining organised opposition party in the German parliament. And of course, they're absolutely uninhibited in pointing out the reason that Germany is in the position that it is in. is because of the disastrous policies that Schultz and by the way before him,

Angela Merkel, have been following. And what Germany needs is an entirely new direction. And despite the fact that the IFD has no serious access to the media in Germany and is under continuous pressure, it looks increasingly as if it is gaining traction. with German voters. It is now stably the second biggest party in Germany in terms of its polling. And of course, if the CDU goes into coalition with a discredited Schultz, it's quite plausible that its polling numbers will fall and a lot of those voters will probably migrate to the IFTA.

Yeah, why would you want to be associated with the loser like Schultz? I mean, his polling numbers are are worse than Biden's. Yeah. I mean, he is absolutely despised, Schultz, and deservedly so. They're trying to cancel, like, A. FD. They're trying to prohibit AFTA in various areas from even being on the ballot. Yeah. So I think they're taking that approach just to cancel, just to try and work to cancel Afté.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, we mustn't discount the possibility that that might succeed. I mean, you know, the analysis that I've just given you is an analysis again based on what would happen if politics and elections in Germany were conducted normally. But of course, there is now real possibility that they might not be conducted normally.

I have to be very careful what I say. If we get into those kind of scenarios, then Germany's crisis is going to get get very much deeper indeed. I think that's the thing people need to understand. It would not help Germany get out of its problems. It would make them far, far worse. And you would see, well, firstly in eastern Germany,

but also in much of the rest of Germany, working class voters especially become completely disillusioned with the entire operation of the political system. Yeah. And Germany's problems are the, EU's problems. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, Germany's, Germany fed off the EU through the Eurozone system. It was part of, you know, Merkel's, it was the Merkel's part of the, a key part of the

Merkel system. You used the Euro to basically make Germany the industrial hub of Europe, obliterating in effect industrial rivals within the EU system I'm grossly simplifying to the point of character to you but that was how it happened that it was one of the reasons why Germany was able to run

these enormous trade and budget surpluses not the only reason I should say Germany also traded with all sorts of countries and of course the euro anyway would have been in terms of global trade it would have been less

a much stronger current is a much weaker currency than the Deutschemark would have been in those kind of situations so it worked the Eurozone system in a kind of a way worked well for Germany

for many years but of course it allowed as we've discussed many times Germany itself is industrial strengths to atrophy. It being the Germans very complacent and it's made them very lacking in understanding of what they needed to do in order to keep their economy modern and up-to-date

and competitive. At the same time, they've weakened the surrounding economies to that point. where they're now absolutely hitched to the German chariot. If the Germans, if Germany sinks, they'll pull down the rest of the Eurozone and the European Union down with them. All right. We will end it there. The durand.com.

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