BERLIN: Germany’s centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote on Monday after , setting Europe’s biggest economy on the path to early elections on Feb 23. The Bundestag vote, which Scholz had expected to lose, allows President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve the legislature and formally order an election. The crucial vote followed a fiery debate in which political rivals traded angry recriminations in a foretaste of the election campaign to come. Embattled Scholz, 66, lags badly in the polls behind conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of ex-chancellor Angela Merkel. After over three years at the helm, Scholz was plunged into crisis when his unruly three-party coalition collapsed on Nov 6, the day Donald Trump won re-election to the White House. The political turbulence has hit Germany as it struggles to revive a stuttering economy hammered by high energy prices and tough competition from China. Berlin also faces major geopolitical challenges as it confronts Russia over the Ukraine war and as Trump’s looming return heightens uncertainty over future Nato and trade ties. Those threats were at the centre of a heated debate between Scholz, Merz and other party leaders ahead of the vote in the lower house, in which 207 MPs backed Scholz against 394 who did not, with 116 abstentions. After Scholz outlined his plans for massive spending on security, business and social welfare, Merz demanded to know why he had not taken those steps in the past, asking: “Were you on another planet?” Scholz argued that his government had boosted spending on the armed forces which previous CDU-led governments had left “in a deplorable state”.