BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expects his government to take decisions on a possible reform of Germany’s strict debt rules by the spring of next year, he said on Wednesday.
Merz told the Bundestag lower house of parliament that his conservatives had agreed with his Social Democrat coalition partners that a commission on the subject would be staffed after the summer parliamentary recess which ends in September.
“The timeline foresees that we will have initial results around the turn of the year and that we will come to decisions by the spring of next year,” Merz told lawmakers.
He added that the reform discussions would take account of a Constitutional Court ruling in 2023, which had enshrined the strict principle of annual budgeting and forced German governments to rethink the way they organised their finances.
Any reform of the so-called debt brake, which limits public deficits in Europe’s biggest economy to 0.35% of gross domestic product, requires a two-thirds majority in both the lower and upper houses of parliament.
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers and Sarah Marsh)
