With his speech about the turn of the century, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) made us believe for a moment that the sleeping giant in the middle of Europe had woken up.

"Finally", as the British "Economist" wrote, Germany is putting its weight on the scales.

Seven weeks later, however, one has the impression that Chancellor Scholz and the giant fell asleep again immediately after the February 27 speech.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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On that Sunday, which is now considered a unique moment of action for the chancellor, the SPD politician announced a 100 billion euro special fund and also raised the prospect of increasing the defense budget by more than 20 billion euros a year.

With that, Germany would finally keep its promises to NATO after a decade of waiting and waiting.

But to set up the special fund, the government needs the opposition to change the Basic Law.

The chairman of the Union faction, Friedrich Merz, spontaneously signaled his willingness to do so after Scholz's speech.

With good reason and probably with a bad conscience: Because the Bundeswehr was largely run down under the CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel and five defense ministers from the CDU and CSU.

But since then, Merz and the country have been waiting in vain for templates, drafts and negotiations.

A reform of the procurement system, demanded by the Union and urged by all experts, is not discernible either.

Time is running out

A working group had only met once for an hour in the past six weeks, said Merz at Easter, another meeting had been canceled and the next appointment was not scheduled for two weeks.

Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD), criticized by the Union as a “failure”, has so far failed to get Merz and the Union to agree to it, saying she is “actively unfriendly”, according to the Christian Democrats.

Before deliberations on the special fund on Wednesday in the Bundestag, both sides demonstrated their willingness to talk.

According to Merz on Tuesday before a meeting of the Union faction, the package in its current form "cannot be approved".

But the Union still considers discussions on this topic to be worthwhile.

CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt said that further talks would have to clarify how the package could be anchored in the Basic Law.

SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich said they were looking for talks with the Union because a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag was needed for the planned amendment to the Basic Law.

Time is running out.

Because state spending is only possible if the Bundestag releases the money for it.

After the first reading in the Bundestag, the law still has to go to the budget committee before the Bundestag and Bundesrat can vote on it – possibly at the end of May.

If the Bundeswehr wants to place orders this year, they should do so by the end of the first half of the year at the latest in order to be able to invest a billion tranche from the special fund at all.