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The German Greens have vowed to block the flagship spending package of election winner Friedrich Merz, turning up the heat on the next chancellor as he races to secure support for his plan to rescue Europe’s largest economy and invest in its security.
Senior party officials on Monday said they would reject Merz’s plan to create a €500bn infrastructure fund and change the country’s limits on debt to allow unlimited borrowing to fund defence.
Their stance risks depriving Merz, leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), of the two-thirds super majority he needs in the German parliament next Tuesday, when MPs will be asked to approve the changes.
Franziska Brantner, Green co-leader, said her party would not be “blackmailed” by the CDU, its sister Bavarian party CSU and likely coalition partners from the Social Democrats (SPD) over the landmark plan unveiled last week to abandon Germany’s long-standing fiscal prudence.
Economists say the proposal, spurred by US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of support for Ukraine and his threat to retreat from European security, would allow Germany to borrow an additional €1tn over the next decade.
Brantner, whose party is still smarting from last month’s bruising election campaign and its disappointing result, accused Merz and the SPD of seeking to “abuse” the security situation in Europe to secure the Greens’ support.
She added: “That is the calculation they are making. That is something that does not serve the country and our interests in Europe.”
CDU and SPD party officials downplayed the Green threat, insisting that discussions were ongoing. CDU general secretary Carsten Linnemann said talks with the Greens would be held later on Monday, adding that he saw a “constructive environment” in their proposals.
SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil said he took the Green demands “very seriously”, and pledged further talks “to achieve something to meet the challenges our country is facing and something that the democratic centre of our country can rally behind”. He added: “I’m not losing confidence that it can be done.”
Merz has taken the highly unusual step of seeking to convene the outgoing German Bundestag — elected at the previous election in 2021 — to pass his reforms. This was driven by fear that, if he attempted the change using the newly elected Bundestag, the far-right Alternative for Germany and far-left Die Linke parties would act together to block the changes.
But the Greens’ parliamentary co-leader Katharina Dröge urged Merz to use the next parliament to seek approval for his plans, saying it would better respect the electorate and enable a “proper” reform of the so-called debt brake that limits government borrowing to 0.35 per cent of GDP.
She said it was possible to strike a deal with Die Linke, which is opposed to higher defence spending but supports debt brake reform.
However the SPD’s Klingbeil on Monday said the defence and infrastructure bills were “interconnected” and should be passed at the same time by the outgoing parliament. Linnemann of the CDU also said the goal was to “adopt the overall package as such and not break it down”.
Dröge and other Green officials are calling for more comprehensive reform of the debt brake, a broader plan to overhaul Germany’s defence and security and more funding for climate protection and the green transition.
Even if Merz wins over the Greens, the second chamber that represents Germany’s 16 states must also approve the constitutional changes by a two-thirds majority.
The CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens do not have two-thirds of the seats in the Bundesrat and will need to win over the liberal FDP, which is in coalition governments in two states and opposes the infrastructure fund, or the Free Voters, which govern with the CSU in Bavaria.
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