Who is Olaf Scholz, and what kind of Germany would he lead?

IF GERMANS VOTED for their chancellor directly, Olaf Scholz would have been a shoo-in to succeed Angela Merkel at the federal election on September 26th. The candidate of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), Mr Scholz was much more popular than his main rival, Armin Laschet, the candidate for Mrs Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU). In the end Mr Scholz’s popularity helped lift the SPD to only its fourth national election victory in post-war history, albeit a narrow one: the SPD took 25.7% of the vote to the CDU/CSU’s 24.1%. After weeks of coalition negotiations with the Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP), Mr Scholz is on track to form a government and fill Mrs Merkel’s shoes. Who is Olaf Scholz, and what kind of Germany does he want to lead?

As well as being the SPD’s candidate, Mr Scholz is Germany’s finance minister and vice-chancellor—jobs he has held since 2018 in the “grand coalition” his party formed with Mrs Merkel’s conservatives (and which will remain in charge until a new government is formed). When the pandemic struck, Mr Scholz loosened the purse strings, arguing that Germany’s fiscal rectitude in previous years had created the space to spend when disaster struck. Germany launched a domestic stimulus package worth €130bn ($150bn), and Mr Scholz’s finance ministry was instrumental in pushing through the EU’s €750bn ($886bn) recovery plan. His largesse has limits, however. He wants Germany to reimpose the strictures of its constitutional “debt brake”, which limits deficit spending, in 2023, and is opposed to loosening the EU’s fiscal rules, as Italy and France would like.