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Germany’s Coalition Launches Commission to Modernize Debt Brake

It will draft proposals by the end of 2025 to embed permanent investment rights in the constitution despite legal hurdles to amending fiscal rules.

Overview

  • The expert commission will include 15 members: five each nominated by the Union and SPD, one each from the Greens and Left and three senior figures, with the AfD excluded.
  • SPD Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil and Greens leader Katharina Dröge insist the debt brake has become an investment barrier and must allow permanent borrowing for infrastructure, defense and climate projects.
  • The Left Party demands full abolition of the debt brake and secured representation on the commission to press for unconstrained planning powers for federal and state governments.
  • CDU/CSU lawmakers express caution over whether the commission’s recommendations will require a two-thirds Bundestag majority to amend the constitution, complicated by their no-cooperation pact with AfD and Left.
  • A temporary €500 billion special fund established in March is seen by coalition partners as insufficient, prompting the push for a structural overhaul of rules in force since 2009.