Well, Friedrich Merz managed to pull it off in the lame-duck tweener session before all those new and pesky ‘far-right’ Bundestag members took their seats, who would never let this happen.
…Timing is tight, because conservative leader Merz sought to push through the measure before the new parliament is seated next week. Constitutional changes would then become more difficult after the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, and the anti-capitalist Left increased their support in the Feb. 23 election. Both parties have opposed the spending plan and have gained in recent polls.
WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING ‘DEBT BRAKE’
BREAKING: German parliament votes to approve hundreds of billions euros in new debt and change the constitution to codify “climate neutrality by 2045.”
513 in favor, 207 against.
CDU, SPD and Greens vote for the package.
The AfD, Left Party, FDP, and BSW vote against. pic.twitter.com/q9qqbJuzfy
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) March 18, 2025
And away we go.
Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, backed several amendments to the country’s constitution that would allow future federal and state governments to take on more debt.
A total of 513 MPs voted in favor of the amendments, while 207 voted against. A two-thirds majority (489 votes) was required for the planned reform.
The changes were made with the votes of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens, who agreed in principle to the proposals last week.
The legislation now goes to the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where a vote is scheduled for Friday.
Merz hasn’t met a campaign promise he made yet that he couldn’t crush into mush, and this was one of the big ones. His Christian Democrats were the ones who pranged using leftover COVID funds last fall, which ultimately led to the Scholz coalition’s collapse, literally campaigned on ‘budget consolidation’ during these elections, and swore by all that was holy that the debt brake was sacrosanct because tampering with it leads to tax hikes, the ultimate anathema in German politics.
…What is even more outrageous, however, is that Mr. Merz is not only trying to use a lame-duck parliament to push through some of the most far reaching changes to the post WW2 German constitution, but he does so while explicitly breaking campaign promises from just a few weeks ago. The CDU’s party programme released in January 2025 states explicitly that there will be no tampering with the debt brake. On page 14 it explains the CDU’s supposedly prudent financial policy that hinges on the triad of adhering to the constitutional debt brake, implementing tax relief, and making necessary investments. According to the programme, the debt brake helps prevent today’s debts from turning into tomorrow’s tax hikes, ensuring Germany remains a pillar of stability in the eurozone.
Yeah.
The ‘closed borders’ pinkie swear didn’t last 24 hours past the closed polling places, and now this.
Like the song says, ‘Promises, promises.’
Who cares about German voters, anyway? It’s been demonstrably true that German politicians don’t, and you can bet the Evil Queen of Brussels is laughing in triumph like Ursula the Sea Hag right now, only internally.
Externally, she has her smirk on.
The news, European Union President Von der Leyen says, is excellent.
MMUWAHAhahahaha!
Germany’s decision to increase public investment and relax constitutionally enshrined borrowing rules to allow higher defense spending is excellent news, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
“It sends a very clear message to Europe that Germany is determined to invest massively in defense,” von der Leyen told a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen.
Speaking alongside her, Frederiksen said: “As a neighboring country it’s fantastic news because we need a strong Europe.”
Once passed by the upper house, billions of Euros will be flooding out of Germany’s coffers, safe from any AfD and Left attempt to rein in the spending.
All in the name of ‘defense,’ you see.
…Emphasizing solidarity, the 69-year-old Merz said Germany’s move to unlock billions of euros in military spending should be seen as a “first great step” toward the creation of a broad European defense community including non-EU nations like the UK and Norway.
With outgoing Scholz watching from the government benches, Merz spoke of Germany’s need to rebuild its defense capabilities after years of neglect and “a false sense of security” and called for awarding contracts to European manufacturers.
The problem with believing the hype is what Merz had to do to get the debt brake lifted, and it played out exactly as I’d written about in previous posts. Merz had to climb in bed with the Greens for almost half of what he was looking for in defense spending, and judging by the jubilation on the climate cult side, they must have gotten most of it.
…After early fumbles, Merz’s Christian Democrat-led bloc and the SPD on Friday secured backing for their spending bill from the Greens, which had rejected the initial proposal. They promised changes including more money to fight climate change and ensuring that the resources would be used only for new projects.
This should terrify and infuriate every German citizen.
…“We ended the legislative period with a bang,” Robert Habeck, the outgoing vice chancellor from the Greens, said after the vote. “Climate protection in Germany can no longer fail because of money; it can only fail because of a lack of competence or a lack of will.”
The Greens, who have been reduced to irrelevance as a party by German voters, now have the funds to continue doing exactly what has ruined the country and industrialized their base.
How does that even work?
This is how.
MORE – Merz also promises the Green Party that €100 of the €500 billion in new debt will be channelled into Germany’s “climate and transformation fund.” Merz did not tell CDU voters this before the election.
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 15, 2025
DEMOCRACY
Terrible:
To get money for its defense now, Germany will enshrine net-zero by 2045 in its constitution
Net-zero means that by 2045 Germany will be impoverished, deindustrialized — and hence unable to afford to defend itself
Not a good dealhttps://t.co/Nzy1jNSpus pic.twitter.com/IVDf2o186n
— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) March 16, 2025
The German high court has been on the CDU’s side both times – back in the fall when it upheld CDU’s challenge to using extra COVID funds for Green initiatives instead of returning them to the treasury in accordance with the debt brake article of their constitution, and now overriding the debt brake entirely.
It’s good to have friends in high places.
Germany’s top court rejected additional attempts to prevent the nation’s outgoing parliament from making changes to the constitution to remove limits on defense borrowing and set up a €500 billion infrastructure fund https://t.co/ElUWAI7nxc
— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) March 17, 2025
AfD’s Alice Weidel had a dire warning about the consequences of the debt brake skullduggery.
The leader of the far-right populist AfD party, Alice Weidel, has sharply criticized the Bundestag’s vote in favor of reforming the “debt brake.”
“Gigantic debts have been agreed to. The election losers SPD and Greens are popping corks,” Weidel said in Berlin.
…”This is the death blow for the euro,” she claimed.
Good Morning from Germany which is facing significantly higher real interest rates under the new major debt plan. 10y real interest rates have climbed to 0.92%—the highest level since 2011. The reason? Long-term inflation expectations have barely increased, meaning investors are… pic.twitter.com/suzFKIJhN7
— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) March 16, 2025
… The reason? Long-term inflation expectations have barely increased, meaning investors are demanding a higher real return due to Germany’s weaker perceived creditworthiness.
In related German financial news, Audi just announced planned 7500 job cuts over the next couple of years that bring the total for the VW group to 48,000 so far.
Merz just promised the Greens another *checks notes* €100 billion (with a ‘b’) to keep doing what got Audi and every other German industry where they are now.
Even if €400B actually makes it into German defense coffers, how much of it gets eaten away in NetZero-driven overhead before a single new weapon is produced?
The already ruinous green grift of ‘Climate Neutrality’ will now be enshrined in the German constitution as opposed to being mere craptastic policy.
I’m no macroeconomic major – I only play one here at HotAir – but even I can see that #mathz is whacked.
I can’t imagine what Germans are thinking of it. For once, you could honestly say they didn’t vote for any of this.
In fact, they voted for the exact opposite.
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