A very important new poll in Germany on the country’s constitutional debt brake has been published: Over the past 7 months, there has been an enormous swing in public opinion. Now, only 42 % of voters want to keep it as it is, 55 % want to loosen or abolish it. 1/ bsky.app/profile/dgap... - ThreadSky

sdullien.bsky.social • 55 days ago

A very important new poll in Germany on the country’s constitutional debt brake has been published: Over the past 7 months, there has been an enormous swing in public opinion. Now, only 42 % of voters want to keep it as it is, 55 % want to loosen or abolish it. 1/

https://bsky.app/profile/dgap.org/post/3lgpvjytwds2e

Reposted from DGAP

Fiskalpolitische Zeitenwende in Deutschland: Laut einer neuen Forsa-Umfrage (Jan. 2025) in @dgapev-Auftrag unterstützt erstmals eine Mehrheit der Deutschen eine Reform der Schuldenbremse, um mehr Investitionen zu ermöglichen. #Schuldenbremse #Finanzpolitik /1

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sdullien.bsky.social•55 days ago

As a reminder: The German debt brake limits new public borrowing to a structurally adjusted 0.35 % of GDP, with exemptions for disasters and economic crises. The limit means that the debt-to-GDP ratio is set to decline from an already low ~60 %. 2/

sdullien.bsky.social•55 days ago

At the same time, Germany’s infrastructure is in a dire condition after decades of public underinvestment, and there is pressing need for more defense spending. The last coalition broke up in November over a dispute on how to move forward with the budget. 3/

sdullien.bsky.social•55 days ago

Interestingly, the shift in public opinion can also be seen within the parties. Even within the conservative Christian Democrats, the debt brake’s status quo does not have a majority anymore. Only for the FDP and the far right AfD, a majority of voters wants to stick to the debt brake. 4/

sdullien.bsky.social•55 days ago

These results will (hopefully) make it easier for Friedrich Merz to agree to a rational reform of the debt brake after the next election, even though he has defended the rules so far. Germany desperately needs a “Zeitenwende” in its fiscal policy. /END

kjephd.bsky.social•55 days ago

Great thread, thanks. Do you know about historical polling/popularity of the debt brake? Was that 55% stable over time, or have there been other moments (the eurozone crisis, etc) where support declined?

sdullien.bsky.social•55 days ago

Unfortunately, there is no proper time series, only a few single polls over time, which differ in exact wording so that it is difficult to compare them.

My colleagues at the @imkinstitut.bsky.social ran a poll in 2021 in which only 27 % of respondents wanted to loosen or abandon it.

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