Merz's debt brake plans divide Germany

The future Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to reform the regulation with the old Bundestag. He has the support of a slight majority of the population, as a survey shows.

Almost half of Germans are in favor of relaxing the debt brake. This is the result of an exclusive survey conducted by the opinion research institute Insa for t-online. According to the survey, 49 percent of respondents are in favor of relaxing the regulation. Meanwhile, 28 percent are against it.

The debt brake is a regulation in the Basic Law that limits the state's new borrowing. It was introduced in 2009 and is intended to prevent the federal and state governments from taking on excessive new debt. Due to this regulation, Germany had a deficit of around 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, while countries such as the USA (6.3 percent), France (5.5 percent) and Italy (7.4 percent) were significantly higher.

Supporters see it as a guarantee of solid public finances, while critics argue that it prevents necessary investments.

The survey shows clear differences in the attitudes of supporters of different parties. Support for the relaxation is particularly high among voters of the Greens (65 percent), the SPD (64 percent) and the Left (60 percent). Support among Union supporters is somewhat more reserved, at 56 percent. A narrow majority (48 percent) also supports the relaxation of the debt brake among supporters of the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) coalition.

The situation is different for AfD supporters. Almost half (49 percent) are against relaxing the regulation. The only people who are even more opposed to this are FDP supporters. 59 percent of their voters are against relaxing the debt brake.

In addition to the clear supporters and opponents, there is also a larger group of respondents who do not take a clear position. Seven percent said that they do not care about the issue. A further 14 percent do not know how they feel about it. Two percent did not give an answer.

During the election campaign, Friedrich Merz did not commit to relaxing the debt brake. After the election, however, he initiated a plan to reform the regulation with the old Bundestag. Together with the Greens and the SPD, the Union would have a majority in favor of financing defense spending outside of the debt brake.

Time is pressing, because once the new Bundestag is constituted, the reform could become difficult. A two-thirds majority is needed to change the Basic Law. However, the Left and the AfD together have a third of the seats in the new Bundestag and thus have a blocking minority. Both parties are skeptical about rearmament and support for Ukraine . In doing so, they represent the opinion of around half of Germans, as another exclusive survey by Insa for t-online shows .

Methodology: The survey was conducted online on February 24, 2025. 1,000 people from Germany aged 18 and over were surveyed; when asked to state their party preference, only 834 respondents answered. The survey is representative with an error tolerance of +/- 3.1 percentage points.