“A pension system with higher contributions means less net income for taxpayers and that cannot be beneficial for Germany as a business location,” said the FDP’s general secretary, Bijan Djir-Sarai.
Due to the FDP’s opposition, the coalition has long delayed a vote on the pension reform. But politicians in Scholz’s SPD are demanding a vote be held soon — and some are staking the survival of the coalition on the passage of the reform.
“We will only pass a budget if the pension is agreed beforehand,” said Tim Klüssendorf, an SPD parliamentarian. “And then the FDP will have to actively say they don’t want [the reform] and then I think that would be a point in time when either the FDP itself would leave or we would kick them out,” he added. “But that would really be the maximum escalation.”
A Harris win would make ‘exit scenarios’ more likely
Germany’s parliament is set to vote on both the budget and the pension reform in the weeks following the U.S. presidential election. By that point, few in the coalition may have an appetite for “maximum escalation.”
Trump’s election would usher in a period of uncertainty in Europe, particularly when it comes to the U.S. commitment to defend its European allies and continued military support for Ukraine. Trump has said he would not defend “delinquent” NATO allies — those who don’t spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — and, in recent comments, appeared to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Joe Biden for the Ukraine invasion.
Christian Lindner has repeatedly threatened to bow out of the coalition should his left-leaning partners not take a more fiscally austere course. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“A Trump election could be a wake-up call for the coalition to finally come together” on the pressing foreign policy matters of the day, said Dominik Tolksdorf, an expert on the transatlantic relationship from the German Council on Foreign Relations.
In the event Kamala Harris wins the election, however, German government leaders will breathe a sigh of relief — and are then likely to feel far more comfortable going back to being at each other’s throats, possibly leading to an early end to the coalition.
“If Harris wins and it is therefore assumed that the U.S. will continue to be an anchor of stability, then people may be more willing to take risks when it comes to exit scenarios,” said Klüssendorf, the SPD lawmaker.