Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, announced earlier this month that he plans to lift Germany’s ‘debt brake’, which caps fiscal deficits and tightly restrains borrowing. This would all be in aid of strengthening defence and infrastructure. Merz declared that, ‘in view of the threats to our freedom and peace on our continent’, he must do ‘whatever it takes’ to strengthen German defence.
As justification, Merz – leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), which came first in the recent elections – cited the global situation created by US president Donald Trump. He said ‘the political developments in Europe and the world are evolving faster than we anticipated just a week ago… Germany and Europe must now undertake extraordinary efforts to ensure our defence capabilities’.
There has been much debate in recent years about the debt brake, which was enshrined in the constitution in 2009. But Merz’s announcement came as a complete surprise. Before the February election, he had staunchly defended the debt brake. Indeed, it was one of the primary reasons for the failure of the previous government, led by Social Democratic Party (SPD) chancellor Olaf Scholz. In autumn 2023, Scholz’s coalition was plunged into crisis after Germany’s highest court blocked it from circumventing the brake and using Covid-19 emergency funds to plug a gap in the budget. At the time, Merz welcomed the court ruling.
So what’s changed? Merz’s reference to a supposedly sudden shift in the global situation is completely implausible. Trump wasn’t elected yesterday. America’s changing relationship with Europe has been evident for some time and was clearly highlighted at the Munich Security Conference last month. Merz was conspicuously silent about his big rearmament plans then.
Then there is how Merz intends to implement this change, which demonstrates a profound disregard for democratic principles. According to German law, the new parliament must convene by 25 March at the latest. Merz knows the right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Left Party – which made the biggest gains in the elections – will reject his plans. So he wants to ram his proposal through parliament before this date, with votes from the outgoing parliament. Numerous MPs who no longer represent voters, because their parties lost support and they lost their seats, would be able to decide on these far-reaching changes. Meanwhile, newly elected MPs, many from the AfD or the Left, will be excluded.
This manoeuvre reveals what Germans can expect from Merz. He will do everything possible to further marginalise populist parties and their voters. His financial bazooka is a desperate attempt to counter the current economic crisis and voter dissatisfaction with more spending, which is precisely what the previous government attempted to do.
Merz argues that boosting defence will compensate for Germany’s desolate economic situation. This has been tried before, especially in the automotive industry. As early as 2015, reports indicated that Rheinmetall – a major automotive supplier – was offsetting weaknesses in its car business with strong growth in defence. Last month, Tagesschau reported that Rheinmetall ‘wants to use even more sites for armaments’. ‘Tanks not cars: How Germany’s defence industry could boost the economy’, read a recent Reuters headline.
This is not to say that investments in German infrastructure or defence are wrong per se. Deficiencies in these sectors are long-standing. The German army became an international laughing stock in 2015 when, during a NATO exercise, soldiers had to mount broomsticks instead of gun barrels on their armoured vehicles due to equipment shortages. Then, in 2019, German Tiger combat helicopters were grounded due to defects. Similarly, Germany’s crumbling infrastructure, with its many dilapidated bridges, has been a topic of discussion for years now.
Many German voters would have been delighted and relieved if Merz had presented a credible, coherent plan to address these problems. Had he done so before the election, the CDU’s vote share might even have exceeded the meagre 28 per cent it won – the party’s second-worst result ever. Instead, Merz was keen to position himself as distinct from the SPD, which pledged to reform the debt brake during the election campaign.
Merz’s decision not to mention his rearmament plan during the election was partially driven by fear of voters. The concept of rearmament has a troubled reputation in Germany. For years, German governments have celebrated a kind of public pacifism. The abolition of compulsory military service in 2011 under Angela Merkel’s government received cross-party approval. At times, it even seemed as if the gradual disintegration of the army was intentional. When President Trump, speaking at the UN in 2018, warned Germany against dependence on Russian gas and urged an increase in defence spending, the German delegation brushed him off. In 2017, then foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel similarly rebuffed his American counterpart at a NATO meeting. ‘It’s completely unrealistic for Germany to spend over €70 billion per year on defence’, Gabriel said, mockingly adding that he wouldn’t even know where to put all the aircraft carriers.
Then as now, the established parties have ducked a necessary public debate about spending and defence. If Merz were a serious statesman, he would be eager to present his objectives and strategies to the widest possible audience, subjecting them to critical debate. Instead, he resorts to the familiar, technocratic strategy of pushing important decisions through a circle of like-minded allies, excluding the public. He is even trying to exclude the newly elected parliament.
It is unclear whether Merz will secure enough votes for his plans from the outgoing parliament. Changing the constitution requires a two-thirds majority. One can only hope that enough parliamentarians remain who will refuse to approve such sweeping rearmament plans with such a paper-thin mandate. Whatever the merits of dropping the debt brake or boosting defence spending, a plan rushed through with minimal discussion deserves outright rejection.
Sabine Beppler-Spahl is spiked’s Germany correspondent.
