Germany cannot afford to wait to relax its debt brake

GERMAN POLITICIANS and economists have bickered over the country’s “debt brake” for years. So it was no surprise that a row over the rule, a constitutional provision that bars the federal government from running anything other than minuscule budget deficits, finished off Olaf Scholz’s despised “traffic-light” coalition earlier this month. The good news is that the consensus for easing the brake to allow more public investment in bridges, buildings and brigades is now stronger than ever. The bad news is that a quirk of Germany’s electoral system could stop reform in its tracks.