Why the German Coalition Took So Long to Get a Budget Deal
Germany’s government finally agreed to a budget last week, but the big news is the length of time it took them to get there.
A German Constitutional Court ruling one month ago caused a major headache for the German government. Germany’s constitution places a strict limit on how much the country can borrow outside of emergencies. In 2020, the German parliament declared an emergency and approved a massive amount of funding due to covid-19.
Not all of that money was used. Germany’s current government took €60 billion (us$66 billion) in unused funds and redirected it to the “climate and transformation fund” to finance green spending.
The court responded in the harshest possible terms, blocking all use of the funding. Germany’s coalition government is now €60 billion short in its budget.
Since then, it has taken a month to hash out an agreement. Party leaders spent 200 hours in negotiations, at times staying up all night, before they got a deal.
Germany’s coalition government is made up of three parties. The largest, the Social Democrats, wants social spending as their top priority. The Green party wants environmental spending as its top priority. And for the Free Democrats, not spending money is their top priority.
The Free Democrats control the Finance Ministry and, therefore, the purse strings. They are adamant: No tax raises and no more fancy schemes to get around the German constitution’s limits on borrowing.
But the Social Democrats held their annual congress over the weekend. They vowed to accept no cuts to social spending of subsidies.
The result is, of course, a compromise. The government will sell shares the states own in the German transportation system. Green spending will be cut. The government will tax plastic producers and fuel used for heating.
So the government survives for now, but there’s a lot of fuzziness and wishful thinking in their numbers.
It has been obvious since its beginning that this won’t be a harmonious coalition. This mess further shows this coalition cannot deal with hard problems. What happens if a major crisis comes up on their watch? They can’t spend months talking about it.
Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has often warned that weak German leadership will open the door for a strong leader to rise in European politics. In a 2009 Key of David program, he said this leader could “perhaps take advantage of a weak coalition.”
Why focus on German coalition politics? The Bible warns that a strong leader will soon emerge in Europe. It even tells us how. He won’t come in by the standard electoral process; he’ll come in by “flatteries.” Government paralysis by a divided coalition could provide the perfect opportunity for this to happen.
This strong leader is a key personality in the Bible’s forecasts of the years ahead. He is someone you need to understand. A great place to start is our free booklet A Strong German Leader Is Imminent.
