Despite announcing concessions, the Greens party did not budge and accused Merz of ulterior motives in pushing for the increased spending. Greens co-leader, Katharina Droege, said to Merz that “you have never been able to put the interests of this country first and not your own”. Adding that Merz continues to neglect issues such as climate change and poverty.
Merz himself was rather frustrated to the point that he voiced out saying “what more do you want from us in so short a time?”.
Nobody said it was going to be easy though. And as mentioned before, the optics matter more than anything else when it comes to politics. The Conservatives might still be confident that the Greens will eventually cave in. However, it is best to be reminded that it isn’t necessarily a given.
The proposed vote for the spending bill is supposed to be 18 March but if there is no clear support, things might get dragged for longer. As a reminder, Merz needs two thirds majority in parliament.
“For such a proposal, it will require two-thirds majority to be approved. And the numbers making up that will have to be from both the Bundestag (lower house) and Bundesrat (upper house). In total, that translates to 489 out of 733 lawmakers. The current CDU and CSU alliance as well as the SPD can gather about 403 lawmakers. So, they will still need 86 more votes in their favour from the FDP and/or Greens.”
If there is no agreement here, it will be a sort of waterfall effect for Germany and the euro. With no debt brake reform, it could even threaten coalition talks and lead to further political limbo in the country. That’s the worst-case scenario of course.
