Berlin (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has filed urgent legal motions with the constitutional court challenging agendas to convene the country’s outgoing parliament to regard a half-trillion-euro spending package, a court spokesperson stated.
The appeals, filed by several opposition AfD legislators, seek to stop the sitting, when the Bundestag parliament would assume constitutional changes to authorise a massive spending increase on defence and infrastructure.
A few days ago, it was reported that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party will file a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court next week over projects to raise new debt through a special fund.
Why is far-right challenging Germany’s €500 billion spending plan?
Germany’s would-be next chancellor, conservative leader Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats (SPD), with whom he hopes to form a government, intend to raise new debt and eliminate restrictive borrowing regulations in a fiscal policy sea-change.
Analyst says obstacles are piling up for their plans to build a 500-billion-euro infrastructure fund and discard constitutional limits on borrowing understood as the ‘debt brake’, plans they want to get supported by the outgoing parliament.
“The old Bundestag (lower house) is at best legitimate to act in emergencies, but not to set a fundamental course for the future,”
The AfD’s Stephan Brandner said.
“This ignores the will of the voters as expressed two weeks ago in the election,”
He also said.
The AfD, which like Trump objects further military assistance to Ukraine, has criticised the borrowing plans as an “orgy of debt”, challenging the legitimacy of the old parliament to take major conclusions, while the Left party – from the other end of the political spectrum – has also vowed legal action.
Merz and the SPD hope to pass the plans in the outgoing parliament, where the votes of the Greens would be sufficient to secure the needed two thirds majority. The Bundestag will vote on the measures on March 18 before the inauguration of the new parliament on March 25. Then the AfD and the Left, which opposes increased military spending, would have the votes to stop both moves.
