Fiscal discipline is all too rare in governments. But enshrining a legal commitment to near-balanced budgets in the constitution has, for Germany, turned out to be a very bad idea. A constitutional court ruling enforcing a strict interpretation of the rule has thrown into jeopardy billions of euros of investment in modernising and greening its economy, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz has likened to a new industrial revolution. Though securing political consensus will be hard, the “debt brake” needs to be loosened, or scrapped.
遵守財政紀律的政府太少見了。但事實證明,對德國來說,將保持預算接近于平衡的法律承諾寫入憲法是非常糟糕的主意。德國聯邦憲法法院的一項裁決對該法條作出從嚴詮釋,將危及德國在經濟現代化和綠色轉型上的巨額投資——德國總理奧拉夫?朔爾茨(Olaf Scholz)稱這些投資要做的事情無異于一場新的工業革命。德國的“債務剎車”必須放松或廢除,盡管相關政治共識將非常難以取得。