Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.

What does Germany's coalition collapse mean for Chancellor Scholz, the country, and Europe as a whole? Well, the collapse of the coalition government was, to some extent, expected. There had been speculations for weeks on how long it was going to hold together, and finally, the Chancellor himself pulled the plug in a rather vicious personal attack against the finance minister. Then he sacked him and then the government went up in flames. Now, what he wants to do is strangely enough to stay in power until January 15th and vote for the confidence, lose vote the confidence in parliament then, and have elections in March. I doubt that will be the case. I think there is now very heavy pressure by the opposition, needless to say.