Germany joins France in crisis as arms bills rise, Norway mulls power cuts

(Originally published Dec. 12 in “What in the World“) Europe’s political turmoil is spreading rightward—from France to Germany.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Wednesday for a vote of confidence from the country’s Parliament. The vote will take place Monday, but it’s one he’s almost certain to lose. Scholz was forced to call it after he fired his finance minister last month and thereby shattered his already fragile ruling coalition.

His expected loss will prompt a call for elections in late-February, leaving Germany with a caretaker government just as France’s embattled president tries to form one following the ouster of France’s prime minister in a no-confidence vote last week. While it is the far-right National Rally leader Marine le Pen leading the attack on Pres. Emmanuel Macron, German polls suggest that the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, will likely emerge as Scholz’ successor.

Already under pressure to boost their defense spending to the 2% of GDP required as a condition of membership, the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are discussing raising the target next year to 3% of GDP.

Only eight of the 23 EU nations that are also members of NATO are yet spending the 2% of GDP they are supposed to. And while 23 of NATO’s 32 members will reach the 2% threshold this year, seven European members won’t (hello Italy and Spain).

But worries about Russia—and threats from Trump that he may leave Europe to Russia’s devices if they don’t ante up on defense—have prompted a military shopping spree. Last year, European Union members boosted military spending by 10% to a record €279 billion ($293 billion). And EU members are discussing the creation of a €500 billion ($529 billion) fund to buy weapons jointly.

France, incidentally, is one of the few European nations that meets its NATO target, spending 2.1% of GDP on defense in 2023. But its current political crisis is preventing it from enacting plans to raise its defense spending by another 3.3 billion Euros ($3.46 billion). With no government running the show, France’s Council of Ministers on Wednesday was forced to adopt a law rolling over the 2024 budget to keep the government from shutting down.

As their defense bills rise, Europe’s power bills may, too. Norway’s two leading political parties want to cut electricity exports to the EU to stem rising power costs at home. While Norway is a major producer of oil as well as hydroelectric power, a shortage of wind- and solar-generated power in Germany is driving up the cost of power in Norway.

How much? Power prices in southern Norway up 20-fold to their highest level since 2009. Most Norwegians are unaffected as the government picks up the tab for 90% of power bills above a certain level. But Norway’s right-wing Progress party wants it to lower that threshold and then pick up the whole shebang. To make that possible, it wants to cut off power exports to the EU’s grid.