Germany's Scholz says ready to discuss timing of snap Gman election

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz signaled he’s open to discussing the timing of an early election as long as opposition lawmakers back legislation he wants to pass before his term ends, Azernews reports.

After dismantling his coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats on Wednesday and losing his Bundestag majority, Social Democrat Scholz said he was ready to submit to a confidence vote on Jan. 15, the first step in triggering a new national ballot in March.

Germany’s three-party ruling coalition collapsed on Wednesday evening after Scholz announced he had fired the former finance minister, Christian Lindner, which effectively ejected Lindner’s fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) from the troubled coalition. Linder and the FDP had been threatening to pull the plug on the coalition for several weeks due to disagreements over spending and measures to stimulate Germany’s ailing economy.