Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged lawmakers on Tuesday to override Germany’s borrowing limits for a fourth consecutive year, allowing his government to take on billions of euros in fresh debt to modernize his country’s economy despite a budget crisis triggered a constitutional court ruling.
“It would be a grave, unforgivable mistake to neglect the modernization of our country in the face of all these acute challenges,” Mr. Scholz told Parliament, citing persistently high energy prices and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Afterward, a powerful leader of the opposition Christian Democrats signaled he may be wiling to accept Mr. Scholz’s plan, a sign that the fiscal crisis that has gripped Germany for two weeks and threatened to fracture the government’s three-party coalition may begin to ease.
Germany’s highest court on Nov. 15 threw out a special fund set up by the government that shifted credits approved in 2020 to combat the coronavirus pandemic to instead finance environmental projects and green technology.
The court ruled that credits taken out in a given year for a specific purpose had to be spent within that time, and for the designated purpose.
Persons:
Olaf Scholz, ” Mr, Scholz, Scholz’s
Organizations:
Democrats
Locations:
Ukraine, Germany