The German Ampel, the so-called Traffic Light government coalition, is now history. Its collapse came on November 6th, just hours after Donal Trump’s election victory across the ocean. Germans won’t be voting for their next government on September 28, 2025, as originally scheduled; instead, snap elections will take place by the end of March at the latest, potentially even sooner. This will be one of Germany’s rare early votes – the last was in 2005 – in a country where political stability is the norm, making government crises all the more disruptive.
The alliance between the Social Democrats (SPD, red), the left-environmentalist Greens (green), and the center-right liberal FDP (yellow) had been weakening for some time, with public support for the coalition at historic lows. The government’s final unraveling came after a clash between Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner, leader of the FDP. In a matter of hours, the disagreement escalated into open animosity: Scholz dismissed Lindner, prompting the FDP to leave the coalition, transforming it into an SPD-Green minority government waiting to be dismantled.
The Traffic Light Coalition Was Made for Another Era
The truth is that the Traffic Light coalition and its programmatic agreement were crafted in a different era, even if that was only back in the fall of 2021. At the time, the three parties believed they could find common ground to steer Germany away from 16 years under Angela Merkel‘s leadership. In those final months of the pandemic, they also managed to set aside a key issue: the German “debt brake.” This constitutional rule, which limits public debt to 0.35 percent of GDP, had been temporarily suspended for emergency spending to address the Covid crisis. The coalition seized this unique moment to delay a contentious debate over fiscal priorities – the SPD’s push for social spending, the Greens’ demand for green subsidies, and the FDP’s insistence on fiscal conservatism.
In 2023, the government once again tried to bypass the debt brake by channeling funds through extraordinary special budgets outside the formal fiscal structure. However, in November 2023, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court ruled this practice unconstitutional, suspending billions in already-planned off-budget expenditures. This marked the beginning of the end for the Red-Green-Yellow government.
In the final clash between Scholz and Lindner, last week, it appeared the Chancellor sought another workaround to the debt brake, while Lindner rejected any exceptions, with Ukraine support as the only potential consideration.
The war in Ukraine was another major event that blindsided the Traffic Light coalition. Russia’s invasion in February 2022 upended the geopolitical equilibrium to which Berlin was accustomed; it exposed divergent views on NATO within Scholz’s government and, most significantly, it severed Germany’s longstanding energy ties with Russia. A change whose most emblematic moment was the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines – a case that remains unresolved by German authorities.
The traumatic rise in energy costs since 2022 – for both consumers and German industry – allowed a temporary extension of the debt brake but also fueled inflation, quickly dismantling the coalition’s vision of unity. It became clear that Berlin could not reconcile three distinct objectives: pro-business, anti-bureaucratic innovation to compete globally (FDP), ecologism and long-term green productivity planning (Greens), and the SPD’s aim to contain social and ethnic tensions through welfare programs. Volkswagen’s recent announcement to close three German factories became the latest sign of this vision’s collapse.
Immigration Tensions and the Rise of the Far-Right
Meanwhile, after a pause during the Covid years, immigration has once again become a contentious issue in Germany, with marked differences among the parties, including within the Traffic Light coalition. Over the past year, the debate has grown increasingly tense, fueled by severe strains on the initial reception and accommodation system for migrants, which places an overwhelming burden on local authorities (municipalities and single Länder). Parallel discussions on multiculturalism and the intersection of immigration and violent crime have also reached new heights of contention. The rising appeal of the far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam AfD in Germany reflects both a consequence and a cause of these dynamics.
The Islamist terrorist attack in Mannheim in May 2024, an Isis-claimed terrorist attack in Solingen in August 2024, and other cases have further inflamed tensions over the immigration and security issues. At the same time, anti-immigration rhetoric has empowered a growing galaxy of extra-parliamentary far-right, neo-Nazi, and supremacist groups, sparking deep concerns among German authorities and domestic intelligence services. This concern is reflected in near-weekly police operations targeting these extremist circles.
Early Elections: Germany’s Only Path Forward
An increasingly struggling economy, a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape, and a newly intensified immigration debate: the real question isn’t why the Traffic Light government failed but how it managed to last three years.
Now, amid multiple crises, Germans need a new government as soon as possible – voting is the only way out. Yet forming the next coalition won’t be easy, according to current polls. The opposition CDU-CSU is leading with 30-33 percent, followed by the far-right AfD at 16-19 percent, the SPD at 15-17 percent, the Greens at 9-12 percent, and the left-wing populists of the BSW with 6-9 percent, while the far-left Linke is below 4 percent. The FDP is also struggling to meet the 5 percent threshold for parliamentary entry, even though it managed to reach 5.2 percent in the EU elections in June.
Fear of missing the threshold may have driven FDP leader Lindner to finally break with Olaf Scholz’s government. Now, the FDP hopes to recover some of the support it lost over the last three years (the Liberals secured 11.5 percent in the 2021 elections, with strong backing from young voters).
Scholz’s visibly angry reaction to the clash with the FDP may suggest that even he is uncertain about being the SPD’s candidate in the next election. Boris Pistorius, the current Defense Minister, has been mentioned as a stronger social-democratic contender for 2025, particularly given that defense is expected to be a major issue in German politics. The SPD can still rely on its longstanding support network in organizations like trade unions, but the party needs time to regroup and prepare for the upcoming elections. This may explain Scholz’s attempts to extend the life of his current minority government.
The Greens, however, have already launched their 2025 campaign, with Economics Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck as their candidate. While they have a solid core of loyal voters, the Greens may also seek to attract broader support by distancing themselves from the last government, arguing that their agenda was never fully realized. This strategy will be challenging; over the past three years, the Greens have often been the most visible scapegoat for the Traffic Light coalition’s struggles and have frequently been attacked as Germany’s “most woke” party.
The CDU-CSU, meanwhile, stands to gain the most from this government crisis. Entering opposition in 2021 and realigning as a center-right conservative force –especially on immigration – may finally pay off for the Union under Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder. Merz might even be the German politician most prepared to open dialogue with US President-elect Trump. Any cooperation between the CDU-CSU and the far-right AfD remains officially off the table, though collaboration with the FDP (should they pass the 5 percent threshold) would be welcomed, even if the FDP will remain a competitor during the campaign.
Still, the current polling numbers aren’t enough to secure a black-yellow coalition (CDU-CSU and FDP). Germany could once again find itself with a “GroKo” (grand coalition) of CDU-CSU and SPD. A black-green coalition (CDU-CSU and Greens), popular in 2021, is now less likely; the Christian Democrats are wary of jeopardizing their current momentum by aligning with the Greens before the elections. In the end, three-party coalitions like the Germany Coalition (CDU-CSU, SPD, and FDP) or the Jamaica Coalition (CDU-CSU, Greens, and FDP) might prove necessary. The new left-populist BSW may also play a role, though the party’s ambiguous stance –particularly on foreign policy – makes it a difficult partner at the national level.
Thanks to the early collapse of Scholz’s government, the AfD is poised to intensify its critique of the German political system. While the AfD is unlikely to play a central role as long as all parties maintain the so-called Brandmauer (firewall) by refusing cooperation with the far-right, the durability of this barrier remains uncertain. Recent geopolitical shifts show how quickly political structures can change.
Though Germany’s government crisis had been long in the making and isn’t directly tied to Trump’s victory in the U.S., the timing of these events highlights how national and international politics can accelerate in tandem, with outcomes that are only partially predictable. What’s certain is that navigating the next few years won’t be easy, and Berlin’s next government will need a robust strategy to manage this complexity.
Cover photo: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks at Christian Lindner (FDP), former Federal Minister of Finance at Bellevue Palace, Berlin, on November 7, 2024.(Photo by Christoph Soeder / DPA / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP)
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