Goodbye to fiscal austerity. The lower house of the German Parliament has approved in Second and Third Reading the plan agreed by conservatives, social democrats and environmentalists to reform the German Constitution and enable a historical increase in defense spending together with a package of 500,000 million euros in investments to modernize the outdated infrastructure and for the protection of the climate.
The constitutional reform is the result of an agreement between the Christian -democratic union (CDU) and the Social Cristian Union (CSU), the Social Democratic Party and the Greens, and Merz has taken it forward in the current lower house, where these formations have the necessary majority. The conservatives and the social democrats, who negotiate a coalition of government, wanted to approve the urgency reform in the current hemicycle, since in the new emerged from the general elections of February (which will be constituted on the 25th), the ultra -right of AFD and the left (Die Linke) could have blocked the great Merz plan, if a majority of two thirds.
According to the ARD chain, 513 deputies have voted in favor of the changes and 207, against. To obtain a two -thirds majority, 489 votes were needed in favor. The votes against them almost exclusively from the fractions of the Liberal Party (FDP), AFD, Die Linke and the “Conservative Left” Alianza Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW).
The reform modifies the so -called debt brake that contemplates that the new indebtedness cannot be above 0.35% of GDP. In the future, defense spending that exceeds 1% of GDP will not be subjected to the debt. The constitutional reform that allows German Rearme has been approved together with other modifications of the fundamental law that will allow the creation of a fund for infrastructure and the protection of the climate of 500,000 million euros in 12 years, in addition to offering possibilities of indebtedness to the 16 federated states.
The Greens had previously expressed their support for the plans after receiving considerable concessions of the CDU, which guaranteed that 100,000 million will be used for the protection of the climate and the economic restructuring respectful of the environment.
The reforms approved on Tuesday must now achieve approval on Friday of the upper Chamber of Parliament (Bundesrat), in which the federated states meet, whose green light is presented as a parliamentary procedure.
The leader of the CDU and virtual German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has defended the constitutional reform plans to make possible an increase in defense expenditure and investments in infrastructure and climate protection referring to the Russian war against Europe.
“A constitutional reform of this draft is only justified under special circumstances. “It is not only a war against the integrity of Ukraine but against all of Europe with sabotage, misinformation and murders in our territory,” he stressed in the extraordinary plenary session of the outgoing congress.
The co -president of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and head of the parliamentary group, Lars Klingbeil, has also defended the reform plans referring to both the security situation and the need to make investments in infrastructure. “On the one hand we have an aggressive Russia and on the other hand to unpredictable US.
Klingbeil has celebrated that a historical commitment could have been reached and has said that this may differentiate Germany from other countries where center parties block with each other and give wings to radicals.
Parties such as AFD and FDP liberals have strongly criticized the financial package during the parliamentary debate. Die Linke also rejects the plans. Half a dozen resources before the Constitutional Court, two of AFD, one on the left, another of BSW, another of the FDP liberals and another of an independent deputy failed and could not avoid the celebration of the vote in the outgoing German lower house, the last of the 20th Legislature.
In one of the most tense moments of the vote on Tuesday, a group of BSW deputies has taken banners denouncing what they call “war credits.” “Neither in 1914 nor in 2025. Not to war credits,” read in his banners, in which he alluded to World War I.
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