Germany’s Scholz fires his finance minister as his coalition collapses

Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced he is firing Finance Minister Christian Lindner, which could undermine the ruling three-party coalition that relies on Lindner’s pro-business party. The coalition has been arguing for weeks over ways to boost the country’s ailing economy, but were not able to find a compromise. Lindner, from the pro-business Free Democrats, had pushed for changes in the country’s economic policy, rejecting tax increases or changes to Germany’s strict self-imposed limits on running up debt. Scholz’s Social Democrats and the environmental Greens want to see massive state investment and rejected Free Democrats’ proposals to cut welfare programs. It was not immediately clear if the Free Democrats would leave the government coalition.