Hard right on course to win big in Germany
New polling from YouGov puts the Social Democrats in third place, behind Alternative for Germany.
ByOlaf Scholz
Olaf Scholz has been the chancellor of Germany since December 2021. Born in 1958, he studied law at the University of Hamburg, was Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018, and since 2018 had been vice-chancellor and finance minister in Angela Merkel’s coalition government. His Social Democratic Party won the most seats in the September 2021 federal election and governs in coalition with the Greens and the Free Democratic Party. Find all our latest news, comment and opinion on the German chancellor here.
The year ahead: How could Germany’s election shape the EU?
The February vote looks likely to result in another grand coalition – yet much of the country’s inertia is structural.
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Biden’s missiles won’t save Ukraine
The West has failed to agree on a war goal since the start of the war.
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How did it go so wrong for Germany?
The former economic superpower is mired in a deep structural slump.
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The collapse of Germany’s government
The country is now condemned to a political vacuum for months.
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The left must resist the seductions of austerity
Britain and Germany are walking into the same fiscal doom loop.
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Germany’s delusional China strategy
Berlin can’t shield German companies from the reality of geopolitics.
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The German SPD’s foolish attachment to Putin’s Russia
Olaf Scholz’s centre-left party refuses to abandon its nostalgic ties to Moscow – and is paying a heavy political price.
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How Olaf Scholz lost Germany
German voters have come to distrust their chancellor – but that’s just the start of his problems.
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The left’s slide in Germany is a warning for Labour
In power, Olaf Scholz’s coalition offers no answers for a country that has lost its competitive edge in the world.…
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The return of the two Germanys
The country is in economic and political crisis and parties of the extreme left and right are rising again.
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Germany has taken over Britain’s role as leader of the EU’s awkward squad
Olaf Scholz’s insistence on reopening the debate on fuel-driven cars was Cameron-esque in its pettiness and its short-sightedness.
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“Merkel’s Russia policy was pure appeasement”
Roderich Kiesewetter, a leading MP in the former chancellor’s CDU, on how his party helped embolden Vladimir Putin to invade…
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What Keir Starmer has learnt from the return of the German Social Democrats
To win back Red Wall voters, Labour needs a single word to define the party and its purpose. That word…
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With Western support for Ukraine flagging, a protracted war is in Vladimir Putin’s interest
Ambiguity has held Kyiv’s allies together so far – but it will divide them when the conflict’s final stages approach.
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The strange death of the centre right
In Western democracies conventional conservativism is foundering. How did this once-dominant political force become so diminished?
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Why Europeans should not get too used to Joe Biden, the last of the Atlanticists
After the traumas of the Trump presidency, Europe is mistaking his successor’s leadership for the new normal.
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Olaf Scholz’s dithering on Ukraine is paying off at home
His SPD party has seen a bump in the polls.
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Tanke schön: a breakthrough for Ukraine
Germany to send battle tanks to Ukraine; in the US, a frightening rise in mass shootings.
Germany is isolated once more – and no one now trusts Olaf Scholz
For Europe, the German chancellor’s first year in office has been a series of broken promises and fractured relationships.
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