BERLIN — (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced he will ask for a vote of confidence in December, setting the path for an early election in February. His three-party coalition government collapsed last week.
Here are five things to know about the political turmoil in the European Union’s largest economy:
How Germany got here
Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck’s environmentalist, left-leaning Greens and Christian Lindner’s pro-business Free Democrats — a party that has mostly allied with conservatives — set out in 2021 to form an ambitious, progressive coalition straddling ideological divisions that would modernize Germany.
The government can point to some achievements: preventing an energy crunch after Russia cut off its gas supplies to Germany, initiating the modernization of the military and pushing through a series of social reforms. But the impression it has left with many Germans was one of deepening dysfunction and constant infighting.
The coalition fell apart when Scholz fired Finance Minister Lindnerfollowing …