The Bundestag has chosen: Germany leaves decades of economical budget policy and a tight defense budget. The motion of negotiating partners CDU and SPD to the Debt (debt brake) to be relaxed, and to change the constitution for this, has been adopted by the required two thirds majority. This prevents the newly started coalition negotiations from ending up in an impasse.
The vote preceded two weeks of discussion and negotiations, with a three -hour debate as the final piece this Tuesday. The debt brake significantly limits German government spending. According to the Constitution, the government may only make debts of 0.35 percent of the gross domestic product. This makes Germany deviate from the rest of Europe: a limit of 3 percent applies within the European Union. In times of a struggling economy and a war in Europe, the ‘brake’ left Germany little room for investments. The reform of the debt brake can break the impasse in which German politics was in recent years.
Read also
A new Wende: German politics breaks with pacifism and financial economy
The debt brake remains intact as a mechanism, but defense spending is largely exempted and special funds for infrastructure and climate must make more investments possible. For the Ministry of Defense, the reform means in principle that the government can spend unlimited money.
Parliament in old composition
Until last Friday it remained exciting whether the reform would come. This Tuesday, the Bundestag voted for a specially drawn session in old composition – a list of CDU and SPD because AfD and that Linke were represented more strongly in the Nieuwe Bundestag because of the election results, which will only meet for the first time next week. Those parties are against the plans.
With the Greens, CDU and SPD hoped to realize the billions of investments, but they initially tended to a counter voice.
Negotiations between the three parties resulted in a new plan, in which not only large amounts for defense (500 billion euros) and infrastructure (400 billion) are released, but also for climate (100 billion). In addition, the agreement stipulated that the billions for infrastructure are only financed new plans to prevent ‘election presents’ from SPD and CDU to prevent the Greens for feared.
Although the outcome was almost fixed as a result, the debate was heated at times on Tuesday. The Greens party leader Britta Haßelmann accused CDU party leader and upcoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz, for example, of ‘defamation’ because he rather criticized the Greens to deviate from the debt brake. Haßelmann received applause from, among others, SPD MPs.
The vote on the billions of investments in (mainly) defense came on the day after large-scale air strikes of Israel in Gaza, in which Israel killed more than 400 Palestinians, and the ceasefire violated. Online and on the street that is a reason for loud protest: Germany is one of the largest supporters in Israel. The fear of some is that the increase in the defense budget will not only result in more weapons and money to Ukraine, but also to Israel. In Berlin there were various demonstrations against the reform on Tuesday.