Merz Channels Draghi in German Fiscal Reset: Chris Bryant

Well that didn’t take long. Barely a week after winning federal elections, Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has proposed loosening Germany’s so-called debt brake to enable uncapped military spending, while announcing a €500 billion ($535 billion) fund to repair the country’s worn-out infrastructure. Echoing former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, Merz promised to do “whatever it takes” on defense. Huzzah.

Europe’s biggest economy has recognized that its flat-lining growth and threadbare military require a fiscal shot-in-the-arm. It’s the kind of boldness economists and commentators like me have long been urging, and an appropriate response to the US’s abandonment of Ukraine and ambivalence toward ...