The constitutional change in Rhineland-Palatinate is a questionable decision in several respects: the federal government has shown how it's done with the "Bundeswehr special fund", now the first state is bypassing the debt brake in the constitution.
There were hidden attempts under the label "Corona Fund" in other countries as well.
But in order to relieve the state's highly indebted municipalities, the traffic light government in Mainz is now proceeding openly: The assumption of so-called liquidity loans from the municipalities is justified in the constitution by the fact that they are not income from loans in the sense of the debt brake.
In other words: the debt brake does not apply if debt is defined away.
That is a lot of arbitrariness, but little of the Basic Law.
Other countries have not made it so easy for themselves with their municipal debts.
You have set up fund solutions or rearranged the financial equalization.
On the other hand, Rhineland-Palatinate, the state in which a conspicuous number of heavily indebted cities are located, has a reputation for financially drying up local self-government.
The state has already been asked by the courts several times to provide its municipalities with at least the minimum that they are entitled to in view of the tasks assigned to them by the federal and state governments.
Liquidity loans, the last rescue of the municipalities from insolvency, should not exist at all.
Now the government is even having its misconduct documented in the constitution.