Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) is in favor of a debate about one Debt rules reform to give the federal states more financial leeway. “We basically want to keep the debt brake,” Söder told the magazine “Stern” on Tuesday. “However, the federal and state governments should have the same debt rules.” Because at the moment federal states are not allowed to go into debt at all, but the federal government is. “It’s a double standard and it should be something we can discuss.”
The debt brake generally allows the federal government to take out up to 0.35 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in fresh loans every year. There is no such clause for the federal states – they have to get by without loans, unless there is a special emergency, such as natural disasters.
Union parliamentary group vice-president Mathias Middelberg (CDU) also made a similar statement to Söder on Monday. An addition to the debt brake for the federal states is “discussable”, he told The Pioneer portal. Most recently, CDU leader and Union candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz appeared open to certain changes to the debt brake, provided the money would then be used for investments and not for consumption and higher social spending.
Green party leader Britta Haßelmann welcomed the fact that there is movement within the CDU/CSU. At the local level alone, there is now an “investment backlog” of 186 billion euros, she told the AFP news agency on Tuesday. “We can no longer ignore this, neither at the federal level nor in the states. Because nothing about it is fair to all generations.” A reform of the debt brake is “necessary as quickly as possible,” said the Green politician. “Some people in the Union have apparently now recognized this”.
As additional conditions for talks about the debt brake, Söder confirmed that he would then “First about a solution for state financial equalization Bavaria paid around nine billion euros there last year alone. This made it by far the largest donor country in 2023.
