Foreign
TWO top officials from Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) on Friday announced their resignation after a damaging strategy paper regarding the party’s exit from the centre-left coalition came to light.
The general secretary of the pro-business party, Bijan Djir-Sarai, and the party’s operational manager, Carsten Reymann, said in separate announcements that they were stepping down over the document made front pages across the country.
The question of who was mainly responsible for the collapse of Germany’s three-way coalition on Nov. 6, and the subsequent move towards fresh elections has been the subject of intense debate.
The FDP paper – nicknamed the “D-Day Paper” after some of the headings in the document was published by the party itself.
According to the leading FDP officials it was drawn up by staff and the contents were not known to the leadership.
It contained a detailed scenario for the FDP’s exit from the coalition government with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens.
The paper broke down the scenario into 4 phases, the first of which suggested a press conference by party leader Christian Lindner, and the last of which was entitled “start of open warfare.”
The paper states that the “ideal timing” for an exit from the coalition would be in the middle of calendar week 45, so between Nov. 4 to Nov,10.
On Nov. 6, Scholz sacked then-finance minister Lindner, a move which led to the withdrawal of the FDP from the government and set in motion the process of early elections, now expected in February.
The two men were unable to agree on ways to deal with a budget shortfall, and each blamed the other for not making the necessary concessions.
Speculation has since swirled about whether the budget debate itself was a sideshow, and whether either side had in fact long planned the end of the coalition.
Djir-Sarai had previously denied that the formulation “D-Day” had been used by the party in reference to the collapse of the coalition.
In the surprise press conference on Friday which lasted less than a minute he said that he had no knowledge of the D-Day Paper, but admitted he had unwittingly provided false information to the public.
He apologised, and said he wanted to avert damage from his party and was therefore stepping down, he said.(dpa/NAN)
A.I
Nov. 29, 2024
Tags: Bijan Djir-Sarai Carsten Reymann
