Welcome to the West’s Olaf Scholz Era

It might be a slight exaggeration to say that the future of progressive politics in Europe rests on the shoulders of one man. It would be no exaggeration to say that this man bears few characteristics of a potential savior.

Olaf Scholz took office as postwar Germany’s ninth chancellor in December 2021 by saying as little of note as possible. During the election campaign of that year, he stood and watched as his two rivals from the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Greens repeatedly ran into trouble.

The man who rose without trace then faced the task of cobbling together a coalition, a regular ritual of German politics, except this time he was required to forge an alliance of not two but three parties—his own Social Democrats; the Greens; and the liberal party, the Free Democrats (FDP). Their program for government, with the less-than-galvanizing title “Dare to Make Progress,” allowed each party to cherry-pick a few of its chosen goals. Germany would accelerate the decarbonization of its economy; it would improve life chances for the disadvantaged, and it would stick to a strict budget. And on one point in which they all easily agreed, it would ramp up the digitization of a woefully analogue economy (payments by cash and broadband speeds slower than Albania’s).

So far, so reasonable—and attainable. In one respect, the goals would seem minimalist, and yet set against the rampant right-wing authoritarianism besetting much of Europe, locating itself within mainstream conservative parties, such as in the U.K., or in alternative groupings such as in Poland, France, Italy, and Spain, not to mention the ever-present hostile force that is Hungary. Just being ordinary is some achievement.

Then came Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, which upended decades of conventional wisdom in Germany. With his Zeitenwende speech three days later, Scholz signaled the transformation of his country into a military player for the first time since the Second World War.

He seized the day with a flourish. He prepared his speech secretly and hurriedly, informing his coalition partners only hours before appearing before parliament. Legislators were stunned but stood to applaud him. Voters were shocked but sent his poll ratings sky high. And in governments around the world, senior officials wondered whether they were witnessing the real Olaf Scholz, a risk-taker, a leader from the front; perhaps the diffident election candidate had been a ruse to gain power.

They would be quickly disabused of such thoughts. As he himself noted without irony in July 2023, before embarking on his summer break: “I am no John Wayne.”

As the political season resumes, his coalition is fractious, his economy is spluttering, the mood is fractious, and the far-right is resurgent. Abroad, it has become axiomatic to disparage Germany, with one publication wondering whether it had become the sick man of Europe. Unlike in 1999, at least this time, the Economist magazine caveated its front page headline with a question mark.

Discussion of Germany is often accompanied by two tiresome cliches. Foreigners indulge in schadenfreude at the first sign of difficulty, while Germans themselves indulge in their favorite pastime, self-flagellation. As I noted recently in Die Welt newspaper, the difference between healthy self-criticism and self-indulgent whining can be small.

Yet Germany’s present problems are very real. The biggest of them all: Does its leader have what it takes to surmount them? The rest of the world—especially Europe’s other progressive parties—are watching closely.

One answer is offered by Ukraine policy: Scholz’s big speech kick-started a debate about the moribund state of the Bundeswehr (the armed forces) after years of neglect and underspending. At least as important, it opened a much-delayed discussion about Germany’s role in the world. To what degree were Germans comfortable with the use of hard power for justifiable ends, not least the defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty?

A country that had previously convinced itself of Russian good intentions and of the ability to engineer change through engagement, over 2022 and into 2023, Germany steadily became Europe’s second-largest purveyor of weaponry to Ukraine. And yet Scholz received scant appreciation from the Ukrainians or others for this momentous change.

There is one simple reason for this: the character of Scholz himself, remarkably unremarkable, with two interlinked behavioral traits. Scholz says little and does little, until the last perceived hurdle has been cleared, before moving. He is also a man of seemingly unshakable self-belief who sees no reason to explain, less still to convince, and least of all to charm those around him.  

Scholz deliberately portrayed himself as the natural heir to Angela Merkel, even though he belongs to a different party. In this he is a small part right, a larger part wrong. He has her calmness under fire, for sure. But he does not command the room like the former Chancellor did. She did not do exuberance. She had grit, but she had more than that. She had a wry smile that won people over.

The most frequently used term attributed to Scholz is besserwisser, or know-it-all. Take this remark: Speaking at the 13th German Mechanical Engineering Summit (this is Germany, after all), he said that Putin was using energy “as a weapon,” before adding: “I was always sure that he would do that.”And this from a man who was entirely comfortable with supporting and then continuing Merkel’s policy of energy dependency on Russia, both as an easy source of energy for German business and as a (mistaken) means of seeking to tie Putin into the international community.

Somewhere inside him, he believes that others will eventually come around to his point of view. He can wait it out.

His diplomats tear their hair out in frustration, pleading with their interlocuters that Germany is doing far more than it is given credit for. They watch with frustration as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gives his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, an overly familiar bear hug and effusive praise, even though France has provided far less kit. What does the German leader get? An awkward handshake.

This clearly matters little to Scholz himself. At international summits, he appears content to stand at the side during the leaders’ official photograph. At European Union meetings, he seems quite happy to take the flak for opposing a particular initiative. He sits hunched in his chair, leaving it to his underlings to try to justify his position.

Scholz’s refusal, or inability, to lead from the front is factored in by allies. What matters, in their view, is not charisma but delivery. The Americans and NATO have cut him considerable slack.

To understand his approach on the domestic agenda, think soccer. His coalition is riven with open hostility. The FDP is wedded, even more than the other parties, to the notion of the so-called black zero, a balanced budget. It is also an ardent supporter of the automotive industry and skeptical of a number of climate initiatives.

The Greens, who secured more votes than the FDP in the 2021 election, have come off the worst in the 20 months of the coalition. The onetime golden boy, Economy Minister Robert Habeck, has seen his ratings plunge over an unpopular law to ban new oil and gas heating systems. In recent weeks, a public spat broke out between the Greens’ Family Minister Lisa Paus and the Finance Minister (and FDP leader) Christian Lindner. Paus wanted increases in child benefits. When she didn’t get them, she blocked Lindner’s plans for corporate tax cuts.

All the while, Scholz sits back, giving rise to the metaphor not of the captain of the soccer team, but of the referee. In so doing, he usually wins the individual game, but it leaves his coalition partners—and voters—cold, not knowing what he really stands for, what he cares about.

The main opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union—the party of Merkel, Helmut Kohl, and Konrad Adenauer—is leading the polls, but not by anything like the amount it should be. Its current leader, Friedrich Merz, is the butt of at least as many jokes as any other politician.

The real beneficiary is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is now ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats and way in front of the smaller coalition parties. It is expected to become the most popular force during a series of regional elections over the next 12 months, particularly in the former communist east. Mainstream parties continue to insist that they will never entertain a coalition with the AfD. Time will tell whether that position holds. The party could also score alarmingly well during next May’s European elections, following the so-called populist trend that is seizing much of the continent. That, in turn, is in danger of undermining Western support for Ukraine.

Amid the gloom, there is potentially another story to tell. Germany remains on track to generate 80 percent of its energy from renewables by 2030—one of the Greens’ priority areas that has not been challenged. It has weaned itself off Russian oil and gas with commendable speed. Although the 2 percent target for defense spending (to which all NATO countries committed themselves in 2014, and even 18 months into Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, few countries have enacted) will take time to achieve, Germany is starting to make progress. The overall change in foreign-policy outlook is generational. And while the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are giving the Germans a poor score card, many economists expect the country to turn around by 2025. It invariably does.

Is it possible to be an incremental revolutionary? This three-party coalition has not even reached its halfway mark (assuming it doesn’t crash, and there are few signs that it will). There is much that it could achieve, if it can focus again on the key targets it set itself (such as speeding up digitization) and if it finds a way of managing its differences less acrimoniously.

It is worth remembering that Germany remains an outlier in having a centrist, or even marginally center-left government, that is alive and kicking. There are not many European models to follow, which is why the leader of the British opposition, Keir Starmer, has developed particularly close relations with Scholz. According to opinion polls, Starmer is set to win Britain’s general election next year, but such have been the Labour Party’s electoral failures in the past, he has adopted and adapted Scholz’s approach to win power and to hold on to it, come what may.

Scholz appears confident that he may yet prevail. The despondency of the Berlin political class is overdone and will dissipate over time. The popularity of the AfD has a tendency to ebb and flow. But facing down its easy slogans requires far greater political courage and more dynamic leadership than he has shown so far.

This will not come naturally to him. He has shown it once so far, during his Zeitenwende speech, if all too briefly. If his remaining tenure is to be a success, and if progressive politics is to survive, let alone thrive, in Europe’s largest economy, he will have to find it again.

Welcome to the West’s Olaf Scholz Era