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Budget crisis
Debt brake dispute: Pressure on Merz is also growing in the Eastern CDU
CDU Prime Minister Haseloff: Call for reform of the debt brake
© Jan Woitas / DPA
The call for a change to the debt brake is becoming louder in the CDU. After Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner, Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff is now also pushing for it star to a reform.
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner was the first to emerge from cover. On Thursday he demanded in star a reform of the Debt brake – and thus went against the official line of his party leader Friedrich Merz.
Saxony-Anhalt is also open to change
Now he is receiving prominent support from the East: Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff is also pushing for a change in the rules. “The debt brake must remain,” said Haseloff, who has been in office since 2011 star: “But for very important future investments in business, technology and science, constitutionally compliant ways must be found to realize them.”
The background: The ruling by the Karlsruhe Constitutional Court not only plunges the traffic light coalition into financing worries, but also the federal states. Like the federal government, some of them have decided on special funds to finance projects and have partly rededicated them. Schleswig-Holstein has therefore declared a budget emergency.
It’s not just the reallocation of special assets that is a problem
In Saxony-Anhalt, the Corona special fund was not reallocated. But it’s still part of the current budget, even though the emergency spending for the pandemic no longer exists. The AfD had already announced that it wanted to take action against this. If the money were lost, the country could face a financing hole of up to 400 million euros.
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Wegner opened the debate within the Union. He I consider the current design of the debt brake to be “dangerous,” he said on Thursday. “It is to be feared that the debt brake will increasingly become a brake on the future.” The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling made it clear “how inhibiting investment the current debt brake is – in view of the mega-needs, for example in climate protection, the crumbling transport routes, the huge investment backlog in our schools, the neglected social infrastructure, the necessary restructuring of our energy supply.”
Without investment, not only the infrastructure such as roads, railways and schools would be at risk, but the entire infrastructure Future of a country, warned Wegner. “Anyone who currently has government responsibility and therefore responsibility for drawing up budgets knows that the necessary investments simply cannot be financed from normal budgets,” said the CDU politician. “We therefore need new thinking and new courage.”
Merz does not believe reform is necessary
Wegner, who had also been critical of the debt brake in the past, called for an immediate reform of the instrument enshrined in the constitution in 2009. “I understand the concern that some politicians would incur debt after debt,” Wegner told the star. “That’s why I don’t want to delete the debt brake from the constitution, I want to make it future-proof in the constitution.” There must be the possibility of loans, but only for investments: “Loans for consumptive spending are taboo.”
CDU leader Friedrich Merz had given his party the motto that the debt brake should remain untouched. On Tuesday, he reiterated his opposition to reform and higher taxes on the talk show. However, he left a back door open: “At the moment I don’t see that we have to approach the debt brake,” said Merz during his appearance.
It is quite possible that Merz – when the pressure from his own ranks for a reform of the debt brake grows – will remember Adenauer’s old dictum: “What do I care about my chatter from yesterday. Nothing is stopping me from becoming wiser.”