2024-07-26 10:49:20
The traffic light coalition is not finding peace during the summer break. Statements by SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich on the debt brake are causing new anger.
The dispute over more national debt is once again dividing the traffic light coalition. After SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich renewed his call for a reform of the debt brake in a newspaper interview and at the same time declared that an emergency resolution was still possible for him, FDP parliamentary group vice-chairman Christoph Meyer is now firing back.
“Emergency construction or reform of the debt brake, all of this ends in a breach of the law,” Meyer told t-online on Friday. “There is no emergency that meets the constitutional requirements. All thoughts of declaring an emergency are therefore invalid.”
The EU fiscal pact sets a spending path for Germany that has already been “exhausted”. Meyer’s conclusion: “A debt brake reform is, as a consequence, a breach of European law. Rolf Mützenich’s statements can be seen as a breach of constitutional and European law with warning. It is worrying how openly breaching the law is being pushed forward in parts of the coalition.”
Mützenich had told the newspapers of the Funke media group that he wanted to critically examine the traffic light government’s draft budget for the coming year. “We will look closely to see whether the federal government’s draft is financially and constitutionally viable – or whether a decision to exceed the budget must be made within the framework of the debt brake,” he said. “We are not taking the possibility of declaring a budgetary emergency off the table.”
By declaring a budgetary emergency, the debt brake anchored in the Basic Law could be suspended. This was the case during the Corona pandemic. The debt brake stipulates that the federal and state budgets must be balanced without income from loans. In the event of natural disasters or other emergency situations, the debt brake can be suspended.
Following the cabinet decision on Wednesday, the draft budget will be sent to the Bundestag, which will discuss it for the first time in September. A decision by parliament is targeted for the end of November.
Mützenich reiterated the demand to change the debt rule. “At all levels of government and in almost all parties – including almost all economists – the realization is gaining ground that we must change the Basic Law and reform the debt brake if we want to make necessary investments in our country,” said the SPD politician. He hopes that this will also reach the FDP at some point. The Liberals reject changes to the debt brake, as Meyer has now emphasized again.
However, criticism is not only coming from him and the FDP, but also from CDU leader Friedrich Merz. With the new budget, the federal government is “happily continuing to spend money, continuing to inflate the civil service apparatus as if nothing had happened, and is now appealing to us to finally remove the debt brake in the constitution, after not even being able to agree on it within its own coalition,” Merz said on Deutschlandfunk.
The federal government wants to “take on even more debt in addition to the existing debts and the newly incurred debts. And we will certainly not go down this path.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the other hand, believes that a reform of the debt brake is necessary. Decisions will certainly have to be made in the next legislative period to modernize the debt brake, said the SPD politician in the ARD’s “Interview of the Week”. “But this will be a job that must be done very calmly and without foaming at the mouth,” stressed Scholz. He pointed out that a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat would be needed for a resolution to amend the Basic Law.
However, according to Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), it is questionable whether this is enough to change the debt brake. In an interview with t-online, he recently explained with regard to the European debt rules, which Meyer also stressed: “Even if Christian Lindner is removed and the CDU falls over the debt brake, the European fiscal rules will still apply. And we should not break them under any circumstances, because as an anchor of stability we have a leadership responsibility in Europe.”
The European Fiscal Compact is something like a debt brake at EU level, to which the member states have committed themselves. It stipulates that each country reduces its national debt to a maximum of 60 percent of its own economic output (gross domestic product). New debt per year may only amount to 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, slightly more than the 0.35 percent permitted by the German debt brake. If an EU country violates the rules, the European Court of Justice can impose fines.