You’ve probably heard about the revolution carried out by the new German Chancellor Merz, overturning the 80-year postwar German tradition of fiscal caution by changing the constitution, thus allowing Germany to borrow 500 billion euros to spend on infrastructure and a similarly unimaginable sum on defense.    

As part of the deal, Merz promised the Greens that 100 billion of the €500 billion infrastructure budget would be spent on climate matters. 

The excellent Eugyppius described the insanity of this on his blog a couple days before the Greens accepted the Hundred billion sweetener:

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/on-the-manifold-fractal-screwups

To bring the Greens around, Merz decided to present himself as an avocado – black on the outside, and green on the inside… He told the press: “… much of what we’re proposing – if not almost everything – has already been proposed by the Greens in the last legislative period.” It is like Merz forgot that German voters have televisions. “Support my plan, dear Greens!” he told the press. “It contains everything you want, and everything my constituents oppose!’” … explaining that he would be happy to use the word ‘climate’ more frequently in his justifications for the debt break overhaul if that would get them on board. Amazingly – and you will not believe this – the Greens did not agree… and then they presented their own separate plan to overhaul the debt brake – a more financially conservative proposal than the one Merz and the SPD had hammered out among themselves. Merz now finds himself publicly humiliated and without his trousers, standing on undefended territory to the left of the fucking Green Party … 

[Eugyppius describes himself on X as “a sharp-tongued ex-American prof now living in Germany, dishing out fiery takes on everything from dodgy Covid jabs to migrant mayhem, all while championing free speech and scoffing at climatist nonsense.”]

But wait. Why is Chancellor Merz promising anything to the Greens? They’re not part of his ruling coalition. 

The answer is that Merz is not Chancellor yet. To get his spending programme (which is the precise opposite of everything his party has always stood for) passed, he needs to change the constitution, which requires a two thirds majority, which Merz’s coalition with the Social Democrats won’t have in the parliament that takes over in a few weeks’ time.

But in the present parliament, Merz’s conservatives, plus the governing Social Democrat/Green coalition do have the required two thirds of the votes. So Merz is pushing through the constitutional change in the old parliament, with the votes of MPs who’ve just lost the election, including many Greens.

Imagine if Britain had a similar system, where the old parliament continues to function for months after a new one has been elected. Starmer, on winning the election, could have said to Sunak: “I’ve got all these insane austerity measures I want to pass, that are opposed by the vast majority of my party. Could you push them through for me, then I’ll take over, and be so hated that I guarantee that, come the next election, you’ll be in power for a generation.”  

Meanwhile, the Greens, thrown out of power by the electors, have been awarded a hundred billion euro consolation prize.

You could set up a fair number of NGOs with a hundred billion.