Germany’s Greens, led by Economy Minister Robert Habeck, have launched a bold new investment program. They believe this program has the potential to revive the German economy, which has been struggling with a decline in competitiveness over the past 15 years.
Habeck urgently declared in Berlin, “Germany must reinvent itself.”
Billions of euros in investments are needed to rebuild the country’s rail and energy infrastructure, among other projects, and Habeck said Germany should scrap its strict balanced budget rules to enable debt financing.
Budget savings alone could not address the significant challenges of the future: “Anyone who says that is taking the country for a ride,” he said.
He described Germany’s previous three-party coalition government, which collapsed after months of bitter fighting over the budget, as a failure that held lessons for the future. The collapse, he believes, resulted from a failure to address the significant challenges of the future through budget savings alone.
The Greens’ alliance with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FPD) unraveled after Scholz sacked then-finance minister Christian Lindner in November. Habeck believes this move indicated the coalition’s failure to bring rivals together for a common cause.
Early elections are expected to be held on February 23, with Habeck mounting a long-shot bid to claim the chancellorship.
Habeck said on Tuesday that the “Scholz government” ‘s failures went beyond disagreements on issues, such as budget clashes, and showed a failure to bring rivals together for a common cause.
“The ability to unite diverse interests is a fundamental requirement for anyone aspiring to lead a government,” Habeck emphasized.
In addition to reforming the rules around government debt, the Greens are proposing measures that could bring hope for a fairer economic system.
They aim to close tax loopholes and require the rich to pay more, potentially redistributing wealth and promoting economic equality.
Franziska Brantner, the Greens’ co-chair, also mentioned tax relief for companies and a reduction in energy fees.