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Germany’s incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz has expressed “confidence” about Tuesday’s make-or-break vote in parliament over his plans to unlock up to €1tn for the country’s armed forces and ageing infrastructure.
To pass the measures Merz, whose Christian Democrats won elections last month, has taken the highly unusual step of convening an emergency session of the outgoing Bundestag, where mainstream parties still hold a two-thirds supermajority.
His Christian Democratic Union, its CSU Bavarian sister party and likely coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD) retain, together with the Greens, about 70 per cent of seats in the old parliament, which was elected in 2021.
The vote’s timing is vital because in the incoming Bundestag, the far-right Alternative for Germany and far-left Die Linke, which oppose loosening the country’s debt brake to fund defence spending, will hold a blocking minority over such reforms.
On the eve of the vote, Germany’s mainstream parties were still racing to rally absentees and convince dissenters among outgoing MPs.
But Merz on Monday declared he was “confident” his package would be adopted.
“I can fully understand that there are questions and that there are doubts,” he said. “I think we’ve convinced the critics. There are two or three [CDU MPs] who want to stick to their decision not to back [the bill] tomorrow.”
Merz’s spending reforms, which would end decades of fiscal orthodoxy, have been hailed by European allies, security experts and economists as a breakthrough that would accelerate the modernisation of Germany’s army and revive its economy, which has stagnated for the past five years.
The package will allow unlimited borrowing to better equip the Bundeswehr and supply weapons to Ukraine. MPs will also vote on the creation of a special €500bn, 12-year fund designed to modernise infrastructure ranging from power grids and hospitals to roads and rail networks.
The Greens, who initially threatened to block the plan, obtained concessions from Merz last week, including more investment in the green transition and a vow to use the package to meet climate neutrality by 2045. They have also secured pledges that additional defence spending will cover support for Ukraine, civil protection, information technology and intelligence agencies.
Matthias Miersch, SPD general secretary, also sounded confident the party’s 87 outgoing MPs would support the constitutional changes: “As things stand, all members of parliament will probably be present and we also expect that there will be a high approval rate,” he said on Monday.
Germany’s upper house of parliament, which represents the country’s 16 states, must also adopt the bill. With the CDU, SPD and Greens lacking a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat, they will need Bavaria’s CSU prime minister Markus Söder to win over his state government’s coalition partners, the Free Voters.
Söder has insisted that Bavaria, Germany’s largest state, would “ultimately back” the financing plan when the Bundesrat convenes on Friday. On Monday, Merz said he had no doubt the CSU leader would deliver the missing votes.
“As far as Bavaria is concerned, the Bavarian prime minister said . . . very clearly that there will be an approval by Bavaria on Friday . . . I have no reason to doubt that.”
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