Germany’s Scholz loses a confidence vote

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German parliament on Monday, putting the European Union’s most populous member and biggest economy on course to hold an early election in February.

Scholz won the support of 207 lawmakers in the 733-seat lower house, or Bundestag, while 394 voted against him and 116 abstained. That left him far short of the majority of 367 needed to win.

Scholz leads a minority government after his unpopular and notoriously rancorous three-party coalition collapsed on Nov. 6 when he fired his finance minister in a dispute over how to revitalize Germany’s stagnant economy.

Leaders of several major parties then agreed that a parliamentary election should be held on Feb. 23, seven months earlier than originally planned.

The confidence vote was needed because post-World War II Germany’s constitution doesn’t allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself. Now President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has to decide whether to dissolve parliament and call an election.