Helge Braun: Head of the Chancellery wants to suspend the debt brake for years and change the Basic Law

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Chancellery chief Helge Braun wants to suspend the debt brake anchored in the constitution for the coming years and calls for a corresponding change in the constitution.

"The debt brake cannot be adhered to in the coming years, even with otherwise strict spending discipline," writes the CDU politician in a guest article in the "Handelsblatt".

"That is why it makes sense to combine a recovery strategy for the economy in Germany with an amendment to the Basic Law, which provides a reliable degressive corridor for new borrowing in the coming years and a clear date for the return to compliance with the debt rule."

So far, the Union has rejected demands from the SPD and the Greens, for example, to shake the debt brake.

CDU and CSU politicians had called for a return to the debt brake or even a balanced budget as early as 2022.

Due to the massive increase in new debt in the Corona crisis, the Bundestag has again suspended the debt brake for 2021.

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Braun argues that exactly this annual decision is dangerous for budget discipline.

“This deviation from the debt rule should under no circumstances be legitimized in the coming years by annual individual decisions under Article 115 of the Basic Law.

That opens the door to the permanent relaxation of the debt rule, ”writes the CDU politician.

It remains completely unclear how long the pandemic could be "a reasoning circumstance" for the suspension.

This lacks a mechanism "that will reliably pave the way for a return to the debt rule and, in the medium term, to the federal government's 'black zero' new debt".

Braun: Debt brake is very important

Braun emphasized that he sees the debt brake in itself as very important.

“In this crisis in particular, it has proven its worth because it laid the foundation for Germany to be financially capable of acting in the pandemic,” he writes.

"It is also important because of our role model function in Europe so that our common currency maintains its stability by returning to the Maastricht criteria."

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The background to this is the concern that other euro countries could become too indebted and thereby jeopardize the stability of the common currency.