2024: the year in review

Dear Reader,

This was the year when the first (and most likely last) Olaf Scholz government collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

Formed at the end of 2021, the Ampelregierung (traffic light coalition) negotiated its legislative programme at a time when Europe was still a continent without war.

Two months later, Olaf Scholz would declare the Russian invasion of Ukraine to be a Zeitenwende in European history.

That speech to the Bundestag was to become Scholz’ most celebrated moment as chancellor. It is telling that it came so early in his chancellery. Everything he did subsequently was judged against those words. Few of those judgements were kind.

But few would dispute that the timing, from a German domestic perspective, was less than opportune.

Scholz’ legislative programme was written at a time when Germany’s intelligence agencies believed that the build up of Russian troops on the border to Ukraine was just sabre rattling. It was a time when Germany’s political class stil…