Germany’s Former Finance Minister Lindner Ends Political Career #NewsGerman

(Bloomberg) — Germany’s former finance minister Christian Lindner will end his political career following a disastrous election result that was projected to see his Liberal Democrats party drop out of parliament.

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“The federal election brought a defeat for the FDP, but hopefully a new beginning for Germany. That was what I had fought for,” Lindner said late Sunday in a post on X. “Now I am retiring from active politics,” he said.

Lindner’s pro-business FDP party was hit hard by the implosion of the unpopular three-party coalition with the Social Democrats of outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Greens last year. Scholz fired Lindner in November as finance minister after persistent disputes over how to fund the federal budget.

Lindner, 46, has been a staunch defender of Germany’s net borrowing limit — the so-called debt brake — whereas Scholz and the Greens advocated for more debt-financed options to stem some of the large-scale investments needed in areas including defense and modernizing Germany’s crumbling infrastructure.

Scholz’s SPD crashed to its worst election result since World War II on Sunday. However, the SPD will likely be part of the next German government led by the conservative CDU/CSU bloc as a junior partner.

–With assistance from Angela Cullen.

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