Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.21-101658/https://www.ft.com/content/bf9dde37-2dc8-44df-b5f5-ef5dece888f6
On Friday, the constitutional reform secured the support of more than two-thirds of the seats in the Bundesrat, the upper house that represents Germany’s 16 federal states.
The changes, which were approved by the Bundestag earlier this week, loosen the country’s constitutional borrowing restrictions to allow unlimited defence spending and create a special €500bn, 12-year vehicle to modernise the country’s infrastructure.
Putin gonna be pootin his pants. Nuclear threat on Berlin when?
I mean, that’s where the nukes in Königsberg are aimed at, no?
I love that you call it Königsberg haha. But yes, you’re right! I forgot about that.
Merz’ party is sending mixed signals right now between being pro-EU and signing off on an enlarged military budget but also two of the negotiants for the coalition treaty suggesting a reopening of Nord Stream, others more or less openly endorsing Trump as well as Merz himself repurposing autocratic tactics like questioning left-wing NGOs.
If they re-open nord stream, that would lead to MASSIVE backlash from the opposition and the population.
Not saying they won’t do it, just that if they do, they better be prepared.
I thin that’s just what we call “spinner” and does not represent the party line. I think if you look at the strength of the signals, uncapping safety spending over an amount where reaching anyways is a very fucking strong signal. If they actually spend accordingly which I thin they will do because every single one of those fuckers will find a way to make their hometown benefit from it. Also it’s easy to sell as nationalistic/patriotic preventing the usual storms of bullshit around government spending.
The autocratic twist I agree on but not to the degree that it immediately threatens our democracy, maybe by proxy though.
Although I have some criticism on the specifics of the deal it is a very strong sign of strong agency to be able to do this immediately after an election even before the new parliament is constituted. I believe that strong agency is the biggest threat to Russia actually.
Are Bundestag and Bundesrat separate things or that’s a typo?
They are separate.
- Bundestag – parliament with representatives of individual election districts
- Bundesrat — council of federate state representatives
Thanks!
No, they are separate: The Bundestag (the more prominent and more widely known institution) is a parliament on elected the federal level. The Bundesrat is made up of representatives sent by the individual state governments. The Bundesrat acts a a check to the Bundestag, as it has to approve laws proposed by the Bundestag before they can take effect.
I might hav missed some details but that’s what I can remember right now.
The Bundesrat acts a a check to the Bundestag, as it has to approve laws proposed by the Bundestag before they can take effect.
Only specific laws, they don’t have a say for most day-to-day politics.
I mean they’re the states, they (and the municipalities) are doing pretty much all of the day-to-day stuff. You’re paying taxes to your state of residence, not the federation, the school system is run by your state, not the federation, the vast majority of roads are municipal or state roads, all boots-on-the-ground police work is done by state police or at least according to state law (aside from the borders and the train networks), the list goes on and on.
The short version is that the Bundestag passes laws that only affect the federation on its own, when both federation and states are affected it’s Bundestag+Bundesrat, and when only states are affected neither decide, the state parliaments do, either separately for themselves or they enter treaties with each other. E.g. broadcasting law is uniform throughout Germany, but not federal law it’s an interstate treaty that all states are part of the federation has zero say in broadcasting.
Polish parliament just barely passed a resolution that we’re okay with increased spending by the EU. Can’t wait for nazis to win German elections eventually and use those €500b to annex Gdańsk or something. At least there won’t be any fighting, because we won’t have a functioning army when we’re going to get rid of taxes that destroy entrepreneurship dreams of polish elites just like in 1772–1795.
Sorry to butt that in here but both news were next to each other in my RSS feed and triggered my rambling mode.
While it is true that the rise of AFD is horrible and alarming it is also true that there is a big majority in germany completely against their world view. And these people more and more feel the urge to act. They should have started earlier, yes. But I am happy to see already a little movement of the so called " quiet middle" to be not so quiet anymore.
Also, the rascist people voting for afd mainly want foreigners out of Germany but I think even within afd voters those that want to invade neighbours again are very few. Its not mainly heroic bodybuilder men that think they’re superior to all countries. Its a lot of middle aged man whining they cannot correctly pronounce people in the football team anymore. That doesn’t make them less racist or dangerous for Germany, but the danger for the neighbouring countries at least is -in my view- very little at the moment.
I hope you’re right, but this is the sort of dialog one might have had about the US a couple years ago. It’s alarming how quickly the tides can shift.
