{"id":421692,"date":"2025-03-18T18:14:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T17:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/03\/18\/voto-bundestag-freno-debito-piano-merz\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T20:05:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T19:05:47","slug":"debt-brake-vote-opens-a-new-era-in-germany-and-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/18\/debt-brake-vote-opens-a-new-era-in-germany-and-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Debt brake vote opens a new era in Germany (and Europe)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – At the Bundestag<\/strong>, history<\/strong> has just been rewritten. Not just national history\u00a0but probably European history. The German parliament has approved a gigantic<\/strong>\u00a0financial package<\/strong> proposed by the next federal chancellor, the leader of the CDU Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, to revive the national economy<\/strong> asphyxiated by more than two years of recession.\u00a0Key elements of the plan include\u00a0<\/span>reforming the debt brake on defence investment<\/strong>, which breaks a tradition of strictness in the management of public accounts.<\/span><\/p>\n

If no surprises come from the Constitutional Court<\/strong>, this opens up a new political phase on the Old Continent<\/strong> in which Germany may no longer be the paladin of austerity<\/strong> but, on the contrary, leads the way for the increasing (debt) investments in\u00a0defence<\/strong>\u00a0that the Twenty-Seven will have to undertake in the coming years.<\/p>\n

The vote at the Bundestag<\/h3>\n

The Bundestag, the lower house of Berlin’s legislature, gave its verdict today (March 18) on the entire package put on the table<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month by Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, the leader of the Christian Democrats and federal chancellor in pectore<\/i><\/strong>, to get the German economy, which has been in recession for more than two years, back on track. The main components of his shock plan are two: a 500 billion<\/strong> special fund to cover the industrial and infrastructure investments the country will need to sustain in the coming years and the reform of the constitutional debt limit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Bundestag\"<\/a>
The Bundestag in Berlin (archive photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end, the vote ended\u00a0with 513 in favour and 207 against<\/strong>: supporting it, as expected, were the Union (CDU\/CSU)<\/strong> parties and the SPD<\/strong> Social Democrats\u2014who will make up the next federal executive\u2014plus the Greens<\/strong>(B\u00fcndnis 90\/Die Gr\u00fcnen). The environmentalists’ support was key to passing the two-thirds threshold<\/strong> (489 votes out of 733) needed to reform the Constitution. The approval of the Bundestag now paves the way for the examination of the measure by the Bundesrat<\/strong>, the upper house representing the federal states, where a positive vote is expected on Friday (March 21).<\/p>\n

Merz and his allies had pushed for the package to be voted on by the outgoing legislature<\/strong> instead of the one that emerged from the early elections in February<\/a>, which will take office next March 25. Here, the two forces at the extremes of the parliamentary arc will have a bloc minority<\/strong> of 216 out of 630 MPs: the ultra-right of Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/i> (AfD)<\/strong> is opposed to reshaping the debt brake, while the radical left of Die Linke<\/i><\/strong> opposes increased military spending.<\/p>\n

But even today, in the chamber, there was no shortage of attacks against Merz and his allies. Christian D\u00fcrr<\/strong>, group leader of the FDP liberals, accused the leader of the CDU of putting together a “debt coalition<\/strong>,” breaking all the promises<\/strong> made in the election campaign. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel<\/strong> denounced the worst “electoral fraud” in Republican history<\/strong> in complicity with the “losers” of the polls (Social Democrats and ecologists), effectively bypassing the voters’ verdict.<\/p>\n

\n

“The acceptance of this debt package will be a huge burden, especially for future generations. This is the worst voter deception that the Federal Republic of Germany has experienced in its history.” #debt brake<\/a> #Debtorgy<\/a> #Merz<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/0FTU3mFTL7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) March 18, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the Gr\u00fcnen <\/i>had supported his plan, Co-Chairwoman Britta Hasselmann<\/strong> <\/strong>complained about the “populism and arrogance” demonstrated by Merz in the election campaign, during which he had harshly attacked progressives precisely because they defended the need for more debt-financed investments. The co-leader of the Linke, S\u00f6ren Pellmann, branded as “unacceptable” the rearmament and militarisation of Germany.<\/p>\n

Change of pace<\/h3>\n

The Schuldenbremse<\/strong>\u2014literally “brake on debt<\/strong>“\u2014is the combination of a series of amendments to the Basic Law<\/strong> (Germany’s Basic Charter) introduced in 2009, which set a ceiling of 0.35 per cent of GDP to the new debt<\/strong> that the federal government can take on each year. Not without some irony, it was the same great coalition of Christian Democrats and Socialists<\/strong> that introduced it 16 years ago that has now put it on the back burner. At its head then was\u00a0Angela Merkel<\/strong> in her first term, during which the sovereign debt crisis<\/strong> that seemed on the verge of collapsing the Eurozone had deflagrated.<\/p>\n

For the sake of precision, the reform approved today does not loosen the brake for any spending chapter of the national budget but only for defence-related items<\/strong> (including civil defence, intelligence services, and cybersecurity) that exceed 1 per cent of GDP<\/strong>. At the same time, the 16 L\u00e4nder that make up the Federal Republic will be allowed to spend 0.35 per cent of their domestic product<\/strong>, whereas currently they could not exceed even one cent. Overall, the value of the plan should be<\/a> around 1 trillion euros.<\/p>\n

\"Friedrich<\/a>
CDU leader Friedrich Merz (photo: Ina Fassbender\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What was\u00a0established by today’s vote is undoubtedly a radical change in the rigorist positions of Germany<\/strong>, traditionally at the forefront of the so-called frugal countries, which opens the door, at least potentially, to a new phase of massive borrowing by European chancelleries<\/strong>. A real “epochal turnaround<\/strong>” (Zeitenwende), as Merz himself called it. The second after the one announced in 2022 by outgoing Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz<\/strong>, when, in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he had the Bundestag approve a 100 billion fund for national rearmament<\/strong>, anticipating the ReArm Europe by three years.<\/p>\n

Today, Germany is thus freeing itself from its own legal shackles and preparing to take the lion’s share of the blame among the Twenty-Seven, who, under Ursula von der Leyen’s\u00a0<\/strong>plan for continental rearmament, will be able to invest up to 650 billion in defence without caring about stability pact constraints<\/strong>. The leader of the CDU has caught the spirit of the times across the Old Continent and is ready to ride it.\u00a0“For at least a decade, we have perceived\u00a0<\/span>a false sense of security<\/strong>,” he told the House, adding that what the MEPs accomplished today “can only be\u00a0<\/span>the first major step toward a new European defence community<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch out for Karlsruhe<\/h3>\n

All this unless the Federal Constitutional Court<\/strong> has something to say about it. The judges in Karlsruhe should examine<\/a> closely the claims made in recent hours by several AfD and FDP<\/strong> deputies, who do not intend to let Merz get away with what they denounce as palace politics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Court’s decisions could throw a spanner in the works<\/strong> of the next government even before it takes office. For example, forcing it to resubmit its proposals in a more politically balkanized chamber\u00a0or even declaring unconstitutional (in whole or in part) the measures<\/strong> that Union, Spd and Gr\u00fcnen have laboriously agreed upon.<\/p>\n

\"Scholz\"<\/a>
Outgoing German chancellor Olaf Scholz (photo: John McDougall\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This would not be the first time. Already in November 2023<\/a>, a Karlsruhe ruling had blocked the shift of some unused funds<\/strong> from an instrument originally designed to combat COVID-19, thus opening a 60 billion<\/strong> hole in the national budget\u00a0and exacerbating the clashes between the partners of the quarrelsome semaphore coalition, which would implode within a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin’s parliament has approved the country’s maxi-plan for economic recovery, including reform of the constitutional debt limit advanced by future Chancellor Friedrich Merz to allow massive military spending. It is the end of a historical taboo that charts the trajectory for the rearmament of the entire continent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":421688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26267,30650,30753,30559,29635,30751,30752],"class_list":["post-421692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-brake-to-debit-en","tag-policy-budget-en","tag-bundestag-en","tag-friedrich-merz-en","tag-grand-coalition-en","tag-piano-merz-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421692"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421711,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421692\/revisions\/421711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}