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A decision was pending in the Bundestag on Thursday that could become expensive for Germany's taxpayers in the next few years and decades.

Because the legislature has approved the ratification law for the so-called EU capital adequacy decision.

The harmless-sounding term actually arouses associations with equity.

But far from it: Behind this is a debt instrument that, as a reconstruction fund, is intended to provide financial relief for the EU states, which have been additionally weakened by Corona, and thus revitalize them.

It comprises a sum of 750 billion euros, of which 390 billion are non-repayable “grants” and 360 billion are loans.

But it is not just any rescue package like the one that has been given with each new flare-up of the smoldering euro crisis over the past ten years or more.

This package fundamentally changes the financial architecture of the international community.

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Because in order to finance the donations, the EU wants to take out loans on the capital markets that are not repaid by the recipients but through the EU budget.

The subsidy and repayment of the respective member states are separated from each other: Germany, for example, is the largest net contributor with an estimated 65 billion euros.

It is the first time ever that such a significant amount of funding has been raised through EU bonds and distributed to the Member States.

And Germany, as the largest economy in the EU, is at the center of this plan: the whole structure depends on its creditworthiness, its economic strength.

Programmed to be more relaxed about budget rules

And it is de facto the entry into a debt and transfer community. For the member states are jointly liable for the fund's debts through their future contributions to the budget of the European Union.

If one of them fails, the other states have to step in according to their share of the EU budget.

For Germany, this share of the liability risk is 24 percent.

There they are, so to speak, the Eurobonds that Germany never wanted.

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The principles of personal responsibility and sole liability, as provided for in the Maastricht Treaties with the so-called “no-bail-out” rule, are history with the reconstruction fund.

And the new rules provide for one more refinement: the sometimes worryingly high debt levels of some of the member states should not be burdened by the new fund.

You don't have to be a prophet to predict a more lax approach to conventional budget rules.

One of the main arguments for common European debts has always been to contain extremist and nationalist tendencies.

That worked for this time: In Italy, approval ratings for the EU rose after the package was announced.

But this mechanism harbors the potential for blackmail.

Thrift, diligence and renunciation

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The money from this fund will also be spent at some point.

Is it seriously to be expected that the Member States, which were already weakening economically before the Corona crisis, will succeed in turning towards a sustainable economy by then, which at least will not allow the debt level to rise any further?

There are already voices - even from Germany itself - for whom there is no alternative to stabilizing liability through a fiscal union.

A community of states cannot do without solidarity, especially in crises like the current one.

But anyone who, contrary to the original spirit of the idea of ​​a united Europe, wants to permanently establish liability and transfers in the Union will end up damaging the European idea instead of promoting it.

Peaceful coexistence on the continent will only be possible if the citizens of all states can be sure that each country basically takes economic responsibility for its own fate - with thrift, diligence and, where necessary, with renunciation.

Also and above all the German taxpayers.