Germany’s Greens vow to quash Merz’s spending revolution

BERLIN — Germany’s Greens are vowing to put an end to Friedrich Merz’s paradigm-changing plan to invest massively in defense and infrastructure.

Greens leaders on Monday said they would urge lawmakers in the party to reject a historic deal by Merz’s conservatives and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) to unleash hundreds of billions of euros of new spending to bolster the military and invest heavily in the economy. In order to pass the proposed bills as soon as next week, as Merz intends, he needs the support of the Greens.

“If the CDU and SPD think that, because of the security threat posed by Putin in the Kremlin — and, honestly, also Donald Trump in the White House — we will simply have to go along with this, then we reject that outright,” one of the party’s leaders, Felix Banaszak, said on Monday in Berlin, referring to Merz’s Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party, who are set to hold coalition talks following the Feb. 23 election.

If the Greens follow through on their rejection of the plan, the decision would put Merz in a bind. His plans to effectively exempt defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt brake and create a €500 billion infrastructure fund require a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag. If the sitting parliament doesn’t agree, the far-right, pro-Kremlin Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and The Left, which opposes military spending, will have the strength to block the deal once the newly elected Bundestag convenes by March 25 at the latest. 

But the Greens, who generally favor more spending for the military and infrastructure, say they will reject Merz’s plans — at least in their current format.

The Greens say they want guarantees that infrastructure spending will also go toward meeting Germany’s climate goals. Greens leaders in Berlin on Monday also portrayed the conservative-SPD deal as lacking seriousness and “real” proposals for investment.

“Who would have thought that we, as Greens, would ever have to push back against a proposal that uses debt not for investment, but to create fiscal space for other projects that have nothing to do with the future?” party co-chief Banaszak said.

Other Greens leaders echoed that criticism.

“Anyone who wants us to agree to more investment must also show that it is really about more investment in climate protection, more investment in the economy in this country,” said Katharina Dröge, co-chair of the Greens parliamentary group. “We are certainly not available for play money and that is why we will not agree to these proposals.”

The Greens’ strong rejection appeared to take many conservative and SPD leaders by surprise. | Kirill Kudryavtsev/Getty Images

The Greens’ strong rejection appeared to take many conservative and SPD leaders by surprise, but could be a gambit to extract concessions ahead of negotiations with Merz and the SPD.

The parliamentary leaders of the Greens are set to meet Merz and SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil on Monday evening. Conservative and SPD leaders expressed hope a compromise will be reached in the next days.

“The top priority for me and Friedrich Merz in the coming days is that we achieve something together and I am not giving up the confidence that we can succeed,” Klingbeil told reporters on Monday.

Merz, in a radio interview on Sunday, had already signaled his willingness to meet some of the Greens’ demands, such as using part of the infrastructure fund for climate measures.