CGTN Europe speaks to Dr. Ulrich Brückner, Professor for European Studies at Stanford University Berlin.
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00:00Ulrich Bruckner is Professor of European Studies at Stanford University in Berlin
00:05and joins us now. Professor, thanks so much for your time.
00:08So this is actually the result that Olaf Scholz wanted,
00:11going to get hopefully the backing of the electorate for his economic way forward.
00:17A calculated risk for him. Do you think it's a wise move for the country?
00:23Well, first of all, it is a political move,
00:27because all the parties involved expect this to be more or less beneficial for them.
00:33Either they couldn't get any influence within the coalition.
00:37This is the story of the liberals,
00:40and it's the main reason why they provoked the end of the coalition.
00:44And for the two remaining party members in the coalition,
00:49it is more or less a reflection of a changing mood in the German society.
00:55So I don't really read it as a major crisis of the German political system.
01:00After all, the Demos has a say.
01:04And if the spirit in the Demos changes,
01:07then the most natural reaction is to elect a new government.
01:10All right. So you think it's perhaps a good move to head for an election in February.
01:17It's, of course, coming at a time of great economic uncertainty for the country.
01:22And globally, there's a lot of turbulence,
01:25if you look at incoming US President Donald Trump.
01:29Do you think that there's a good way forward for the economy?
01:34Do you think that there's a right way to handle the economy?
01:37Because we've seen this massive conflict between Olaf Scholz and the finance ministry he fired.
01:42Clearly, two very different approaches on how to fix the economy.
01:48Well, there are definitely a lot of exogenous factors,
01:52why the German economy and also the mood in the country is so negative.
01:57And it doesn't really look bright for the coming year.
02:00But there are also homegrown problems that are partly structural.
02:05Like when we look at the composition of the electorate,
02:0930 percent of the electorate is retired.
02:14And you address a workforce that is shrinking in percentage.
02:20But at the same time, there have never been more people employed in the German economy.
02:25And we still see stable jobs in industry,
02:29although everyone is complaining that Germany is losing competitiveness.
02:33So there are a number of homegrown and external problems
02:37that make no matter who is in power in a complicated situation.
02:42At the same time, the Ampel coalition, like the three streetlight colors that ended today,
02:52they started a program to reform Germany
02:58and did a lot of things that people didn't really expect in its far-reaching consequences.
03:05So in a way, history repeats itself because we see a similar situation
03:10at the end of the Social Democrat government in 2005,
03:14when too much has been done too quickly and people rather wanted continuity
03:20and voted for a conservative government,
03:22which has been in power for the longest time in the history of West Germany.
03:27So what we see is not a major shift or a major change in positions.
03:32It's more like a calibration of centrist parties.
03:36We shouldn't forget the extreme left and the extreme right in the country.
03:40This is a new phenomenon.
03:42But after all, it's basically a functioning normal democratic procedure.