When a German party triggers a Zählappell, or parliamentary roll call, it is serious business. As a television commentator recently joked, “They will haul MPs out of bed—usually their own.”
On 21 March, the Bundesrat, parliament's upper house, approved a fiscal package previously approved on 18 March by an emergency session of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament where the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens scheduled a Zählappell voted in favour of the biggest fiscal expansion in Germany’s post-war history meant to upgrade its creaking infrastructure and rearm its military to face the Russian threat.
After hours of debate, 512 MPs—well over the two-thirds majority needed to alter Germany’s constitution—voted for the reforms proposed by Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU and the expected next chancellor. Mr Merz wants defence spending over 1% of GDP to be exempted from the debt brake, a deficit limit enshrined in the constitution.
He also wants to create a €500bn ($545bn) debt-financed off-budget fund for investments in infrastructure over the next 12 years. And he proposes to end the requirement that Germany’s 16 federal states must balance their budgets and allow each state to take on debt of up to 0.35% of its GDP.
Will it be spent well? One danger is that the probable incoming government of CDU/CSU and SPD, nicknamed Kleiko (small coalition), might fritter away extra deficit-spending headroom on tax cuts.
Another is that the infrastructure fund could be misused for spending previously covered by the regular budget, not new investments. The Greens have partly contained that danger, says Jens Südekum of Düsseldorf University, by insisting the off-budget fund must be used only for infrastructure spending beyond last year’s level.
