You’ve probably heard about the revolution carried out by the new German Chancellor Merz, overturning the 80-year postwar German tradition of fiscal caution by changing the constitution, thus allowing Germany to borrow 500 billion euros to spend on infrastructure and a similarly unimaginable sum on defense.    

As part of the deal, Merz promised the Greens that 100 billion of the €500 billion infrastructure budget would be spent on climate matters. 

The excellent Eugyppius described the insanity of this on his blog a couple days before the Greens accepted the Hundred billion sweetener:

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/on-the-manifold-fractal-screwups

To bring the Greens around, Merz decided to present himself as an avocado – black on the outside, and green on the inside… He told the press: “… much of what we’re proposing – if not almost everything – has already been proposed by the Greens in the last legislative period.” It is like Merz forgot that German voters have televisions. “Support my plan, dear Greens!” he told the press. “It contains everything you want, and everything my constituents oppose!'” … explaining that he would be happy to use the word ‘climate’ more frequently in his justifications for the debt break overhaul if that would get them on board. Amazingly – and you will not believe this – the Greens did not agree… and then they presented their own separate plan to overhaul the debt brake – a more financially conservative proposal than the one Merz and the SPD had hammered out among themselves. Merz now finds himself publicly humiliated and without his trousers, standing on undefended territory to the left of the fucking Green Party … 

[Eugyppius describes himself on X as “a sharp-tongued ex-American prof now living in Germany, dishing out fiery takes on everything from dodgy Covid jabs to migrant mayhem, all while championing free speech and scoffing at climatist nonsense.”]

But wait. Why is Chancellor Merz promising anything to the Greens? They’re not part of his ruling coalition. 

The answer is that Merz is not Chancellor yet. To get his spending programme (which is the precise opposite of everything his party has always stood for) passed, he needs to change the constitution, which requires a two thirds majority, which Merz’s coalition with the Social Democrats won’t have in the parliament that takes over in a few weeks’ time.

But in the present parliament, Merz’s conservatives, plus the governing Social Democrat/Green coalition do have the required two thirds of the votes. So Merz is pushing through the constitutional change in the old parliament, with the votes of MPs who’ve just lost the election, including many Greens.

Imagine if Britain had a similar system, where the old parliament continues to function for months after a new one has been elected. Starmer, on winning the election, could have said to Sunak: “I’ve got all these insane austerity measures I want to pass, that are opposed by the vast majority of my party. Could you push them through for me, then I’ll take over, and be so hated that I guarantee that, come the next election, you’ll be in power for a generation.”  

Meanwhile, the Greens, thrown out of power by the electors, have been awarded a hundred billion euro consolation prize.

You could set up a fair number of NGOs with a hundred billion.

14 Comments

  1. That’s truly staggering, as is the open contempt for democracy. Will they ever learn? Why do they think AfD’s support is steadily increasing? How stupid are these people?

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  2. Mark

    I agree it looks like contempt for democracy to us Brits, but that may be because we don’t have a written constitution, and therefore judge political action by vague criteria of “fair play” or common custom.

    The current situation in France is similarly shocking. Macron called an unnecessary election, causing his loose coalition of centrist parties to fall from 1st to third place in terms of parliamentary seats. Instead of calling on the leading left wing coalition of parties (Nouveau Front Populaire) or the leading individual party, the right wing Rassemblement National, he named our old friend Michel Barnier, from the conservatives, who came in a poor fourth. No one was happy, but since there’s nothing in the constitution to stop him, they just shrugged it off.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. we don’t have a written constitution, and therefore judge political action by vague criteria of “fair play” or common custom

    That used to be the case, until Baroness Spiderwoman came along and threw nine centuries of Common Law into the dustbin, because Brexit!

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  4. The UK has effectively had a constitution since the Human Rights Act became law in 1998.

    Perhaps the worst thing Blair’s government did.

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  5. The Times has a long article on Merz (free this weekend only) at

    https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/friedrich-merz-germany-cdu-gamble-

    which summarises the €100B Grüne bribe as if it were a month’s salary in lieu of notice:

    “The breakthrough came after Merz made concessions to the Greens, Scholz’s erstwhile partners, who will go into opposition.”

    Vinnie, Chris, can you explain Baroness Spiderwoman & how the Human Rights Act is a constitution? I’ve been out of the country too long & know nothing of internal politics.

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  6. The Times article contains an interesting final paragraph:

    However, the legislation also requires a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat, the parliament’s second chamber of delegates from Germany’s regional governments, in which the required numbers have not yet been secured.

    It’s not over until the fat lady sings.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Speaking of assaults on democracy:

    “Romania bans second far-right hopeful from presidential election rerun

    Diana Șoșoacă’s exclusion follows expulsion of front-runner Călin Georgescu from race amid rising tension around poll”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/15/romania-bans-second-far-right-hopeful-from-presidential-election-re-run

    The goings-on in Romania seem to be truly extraordinary. I wouldn’t have voted for the ones who finished first and second in the Presidential election in December, but that’s beside the point. Democracy seems to be in peril, and the EU seemingly approves. As does the Guardian, which finished its tame article with the words:

    …Georgescu’s exclusion led to some violent protests.

    On Saturday, several thousand people marched through Bucharest to express their attachment to the EU.

    Obviously, far-right violent, EU supporters are the good guys. Democracy is safe in their hands.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Why is the left wing terminology always about the ‘far’ right

    and never jest middle – of – the – road ‘right.’ ( As in

    “Daddy , daddy I’v hurt my leg!”

    “Say which leg, Sonny, your left leg or your far right? ) :

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Mark

    The Guardian article on the exclusion of candidates in the Romanian election fails to mention the fact that the accusations of Russian interference have been proven to be false. The TikTok posts in favour of Georgescu were financed by the governing party in an attempt to boost this “no-hoper” at the expense of other rightwing candidates.

    My rule for judging the truth of conspiracy theories on the net:

    • Guardian says “There is no evidence for Z” = “Z is possibly true, but not proven”
    • Guardian doesn’t mention Z = “Guardian has no countering arguments so Z is almost certainly true.”

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  10. €100B Grüne bribe — that’s nearly in Musk territory of wealth. The German piggy bank must be bigger than they let on, or did they just find the missing WW2 gold bars?

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  11. Geoff, I’m not sure I can. It was an opinion I arrived at many years ago and I haven’t revisited it for a long time. I reckoned that the Human Rights Act was an off-the-shelf, back-door constitution. That’s probably overstating it but it did pass constitution-like articles into UK law that allow people to overturn other laws – it allows ‘lawfare’.

    Probably. As I said, I haven’t looked at it for ages.

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  13. Back on the theme of dangers to democracy within the EU, the Guardian has this:

    “Italy one of five ‘dismantlers’ causing ‘democratic recession’ in Europe, report says

    Civil liberties report warns that Italy along with Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovakia intentionally undermining rule of law ‘in nearly all aspects’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/17/italy-one-of-five-dismantlers-causing-democratic-recession-in-europe-report-says

    When I saw the reference to Romania, I thought my criticisms of the EU and its silence regarding the assault on democracy there might have been misplaced. Er, not really. This is what the article says about Romania:

    …In Romania, recent presidential elections revealed how TikTok could allow a little-known ultranationalist to surge to victory, while a bill to secure the independence of public service TV and radio has been languishing in parliament since 2021.…

    And that’s it. No issues with overturning the result of the Presidential election and banning the most popular candidate(s) from standing in the re-run. The danger to democracy is apparently popular “ultra” nationalism, not the denial of the popular vote. Astonishing. But then I suppose the EU sees nationalist forces as a danger to its undemocratic programme of ever closer union, that has been forced through over the years against the wishes of the people (remember those re-run referendums of treaty changes when the voters got it “wrong” the first time round).

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