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.