Germany’s Greens have vowed to block plans for Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz’s proposed 500 billion euro ($545 billion) increase in state borrowing for defense and infrastructure.
Merz must rely on votes from the Greens to push through the constitutional changes in parliament. The left-wing environmentalist party has vowed to block the half-trillion-euro spending plan.
“We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed, nor will we allow Friedrich Merz and Lars Klingbeil to abuse a difficult European security situation,” Greens co-leader Franziska Brantner said on March 10. “This is something that serves neither the country nor our interests in Europe.”
Co-leader Katharina Droege said the Greens would urge its lawmakers not to vote for Merz’s proposals, saying they would only back measures that included support for climate policies and the economy.
The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) emerged as the winner of Germany’s federal election last month.
In Germany, there is rarely a legislative majority, so parties have to try to govern through a minority government, relying on ad hoc parliamentary coalitions.
Coalition negotiations could always collapse, leaving Merz with having to form a weaker minority government with more left-wing partners like the Greens, which received over 11 percent of the vote.
Alternative for Germany (AfD) endorsed by Elon Musk on social media platform X, came in second with 20.8 percent of the vote, its best result.
Merz has ruled out forming a government with the party, even though this would ensure a stable majority.
On Monday, AfD lodged an urgent legal motion with the Constitutional Court challenging plans to convene the outgoing parliament to consider the spending package.
The appeals, lodged by several opposition AfD lawmakers, seek to prevent Thursday’s parliamentary session, when the Bundestag is due to debate constitutional changes allowing the massive spending bonanza.
On Feb. 24, AfD leader Alice Weidel predicted that the next chancellor would be pressured by left-wing parties into borrowing more.
“[Merz] won’t be able to implement anything that he promised,” she said. “He will compromise with the left to loosen the debt brake, and that’s the opposite of what the country needs. ... The state should function like a company and when a company is over-indebted you know what happens.”
The democratic socialist party Die Linke, or The Left, which won 8.8 percent of the vote, opposes military spending but wants to scrap the debt brake if the money is spent on welfare rather than defense.
About 60 percent of Germans are in favor of keeping the debt brake.
Merz has been urged to loosen it to increase spending, although such a reform would require two-thirds support in Parliament.
The move to create an infrastructure fund and overhaul borrowing rules marks a major break from Merkel-era fiscal rectitude.
This would be significantly higher than the 63 percent ratio at the end of 2024 but still below the previous high of 80 percent in 2010 following the global financial crisis.
