Merz throws the door in Scholz's face

Merz throws the door in Scholz's face

The coalition does not yet know how to draw up a constitutionally compliant budget for 2024. But the Chancellor is already listing arguments that could play a role in Karlsruhe. And the CDU leader is focusing on confrontation.

The budget week should have started this Tuesday at 10 a.m., and the Bundestag should have passed next year's budget on Friday. Actually. The ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court on November 15 means that such plans are a waste of time.

Instead, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained in the Bundestag "how the government is dealing with the consequences of the recent ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court". To cut a long story short: Scholz still does not outline a plan B. After his speech and the ensuing debate, one thing is clear above all: if the coalition had hoped for constructive cooperation with the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, it has miscalculated.

With fierce and personal attacks against Scholz in particular, but also against Economics Minister Robert Habeck, CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz has made the chance of such cooperation virtually impossible. The CDU leader is not only slamming the door to talks - he is virtually throwing it in the Chancellor's face.

Reasons for a plea in Karlsruhe

Scholz's speech, on the other hand, was less directed at the CDU/CSU. For the most part, it came across as a message to the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court. After all, they had made it clear in their ruling that the suspension of the debt brake must be well justified.

The coalition has already made it clear that it wants to go down this path for 2023, and the supplementary budget for the current year will be presented to the Bundestag this week. It is not yet clear whether the coalition also intends to declare an "extraordinary emergency situation" for the 2024 budget.

Scholz also says nothing about this in his government statement. However, he does list reasons for declaring such an emergency situation, which will also apply in 2024: military and financial support for Ukraine, which is "also of existential importance for us in Europe in the end". Support for Ukrainian war refugees in Germany, which is right, but also "an enormous effort". And the increase in energy prices as a result of Russia stopping gas supplies.

The German government would probably use all of these reasons to justify suspending the debt brake for the coming year - if it were to agree to do so. And it will probably have to present all of these reasons in Karlsruhe in this case. Merz has already threatened to take legal action against a further suspension of the debt brake - he recognizes the supplementary budget for this year as probably constitutional.

Not an apology, but election campaign slogans

Despite persistently high energy costs, Scholz confirms that the energy price brakes will expire at the end of the year, as announced by Finance Minister Christian Lindner. He does not receive any applause from his own parliamentary group at this point in his speech - the SPD had demanded that these support measures for industry and households run until March as planned. Scholz says this is not necessary. "In the meantime, electricity and gas tariffs are available everywhere in Germany again, which are significantly higher than before the crisis - but mostly below the upper limits we have set for the price brakes."

The Chancellor makes no excuses for the fact that his government has violated the constitution with its budgetary policy. On the contrary, he declared very confidently that the federal government had been working "from day one" on modernizing the country, transforming the economy and resolving the reform backlog. "At the beginning of our government, we decided that we would no longer stand by and watch Germany's infrastructure fall into disrepair."

Towards the end of his speech, the addressee changes: now it is clearly the voters that Scholz is addressing. He brings out the old soccer slogan with which he had previously tried to explain his policies: "You'll never walk alone - that's what I promised last year and it remains true." The even older image of underhooks is also not missing. It seems as if Scholz is already thinking about the upcoming election campaign.

"You always know everything else"

Merz and the CDU/CSU parliamentary group also seem to have this in mind. They comment on the Chancellor's speech several times with heckling and malicious laughter. When the CDU leader then says that his parliamentary group has not triumphed over the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, it is up to the coalition parliamentary groups to laugh demonstratively.

What is unusual about Merz's speech is not that he sharply criticizes the coalition and the chancellor. What is unusual is that his accusations leave little room for discussion. The fact that he accuses the federal government of trying to circumvent the debt limits "in a downright brazen manner", that he calls Scholz the "author of this unconstitutional construction", is still part of the usual tone between opposition and government, as is the fact that he accuses the Chancellor of not having uttered a word of regret.

But then Merz says: "You always know everything, above all you always know everything better than everyone else". That goes against the person, against the character. You don't talk like that if you want to meet in private afterwards. Pointing to the government bench, he says in a derogatory tone: "This is the government of the fourth largest economy in the world. It's simply embarrassing what we see and hear from you here." (Finance Minister Lindner raises three fingers with a mild smile: Germany has just overtaken Japan in terms of GDP and is now the third largest economy).

"You are welcome to come and see me"

Merz then makes the coalition an offer of talks after all, which comes across more as an invitation to submit. "If you want to talk to us about how we can get this off the ground together, please come to me and we can talk about almost anything." There are also subtleties of protocol to be observed here: The opposition leader offers to come to the chancellor. In reality, meetings of this kind tend to take place in the chancellor's office.

But Merz is not expecting such a meeting. He describes it as the "political responsibility" of the CDU/CSU to do everything in its power to "put an end to your government as quickly as possible". New elections then. But who does Merz then want to govern with? With the SPD, whose chancellor he clearly despises? With the Greens, whose Economics Minister he seems to consider incompetent?

Merz also has a message for the CDU state premiers, who have all more or less clearly advocated a reform of the debt brake: "We will stick to the debt brake in our constitution," says Merz. The "traffic light" should not even try to "drive a wedge into the Union", because "the decisions are made here in the German Bundestag and not in Berlin City Hall". Perhaps it is no coincidence that Merz chose the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, of all people to make this comment - the relationship between the two is no longer considered particularly good anyway.

The best joke comes from Christian Dürr

The rest of the debate does not defuse the confrontation either. Green parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge accuses the CDU/CSU parliamentary group of making it clear that it does not care about the fate of companies and employees. AfD leader Alice Weidel manages to outdo Merz's escalation rhetoric by describing the Federal Republic as a country "on the brink of insolvency" or "on the brink of collapse", calling Habeck an "economic illiterate" and claiming that Lindner wants to abolish the debt brake - something he would probably never dream of doing.

The best joke of the debate was made by FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr. He talks about the fact that Union Minister Presidents have also declared an emergency situation for their federal states for this and next year. The only CDU/CSU state premier who had not yet questioned the debt brake "this week" was Markus Söder, "but it's only Tuesday".

Even Merz has to smile.

1. Despite Merz's fierce criticism and personal attacks towards Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck, the CDU leader has effectively closed the door for any potential cooperative talks between the coalition and the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.
2. In his speech before the Federal Constitutional Court, Chancellor Olaf Scholz may need to present reasons for declaring an "extraordinary emergency situation" in the 2024 budget policy, given Friedrich Merz's threats of legal action against another suspension of the debt brake.

Source: www.ntv.de