Given the weakening economy, the first CDU politicians refrain from a policy without new debt. "We will not be able to hold the black zero in the long run," said CDU Federal Executive Olaf Gutting the SPIEGEL. "The sooner we come up with a strategy to say goodbye, the better."
More in the SPIEGEL
Issue 36/2019
Can we be rescued?
How much FOREST the human needs to surviveDigital Edition | Printed issues | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
For the Union parties, this step would be particularly tricky, because many see the concept of households without new debt as one of the few remaining conservative brand seeds.
However, in recent weeks and months, even leading economists who have fought for the black zero in the past have called for a departure from this concept. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz of the SPD has said so far, many social democrats, however, also demand a departure.
Christian Thiel / imago images
Christian Democrat Schummer: "You do not save in a recession"
"Of course, the black zero is the last 'bastion' of CDU and CSU - but we still can not cling to it," says the member of the Bundestag Gutting, a member of the Finance Committee and the Group Executive Committee. "We can not wait until we slide even deeper into the recession." He demands: "We have to invest billions of euros in research and development, in infrastructure and in climate protection." In addition, without the black zero finally "meaningful tax cuts and a correction of the Mittelstandsbuckels in the income tax" are possible.
Also the CDU deputy Uwe Schummer, chairman of the employee group of the Union faction, says: "one does not save into a recession." You have to think "anti-cyclically," he demands. "We need an active state."
"Anyone venturing out of the Union right now will be called back"
However, there is a serious conflict in the CDU and CSU issue on this issue. "Everyone who ventures out of the Union at the moment, is called back," says financial expert Gutting.
CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer recently defended black zero as "indispensable to us". Karl-Josef Laumann, head of the Christian-Democratic Workers' Union CDA, says: "For me, the black zero holds." The state "should not make new debts".
The CSU politician Peter Ramsauer, head of the Economic Committee in the Bundestag, also pleads for a policy without new debt: "Sticking to the black zero is an important identity-creating feature for the Union."
However, top representatives of the Union have reportedly been thinking for some time about whether, given the immense investment needs, it is still possible to stick to the black zero. The debt brake enshrined in the Basic Law would allow some flexibility due to economic hardships, while the principle of the black zero basically does not provide for any new debt.
This topic comes from the new SPIEGEL magazine - available at the kiosk from Saturday morning and every Friday at SPIEGEL + and in the digital magazine edition.
What is in the new SPIEGEL and what stories you find at SPIEGEL +, you will also learn in our free policy newsletter DIE LAGE, which appears six times a week - compact, analytical, opinionated, written by the political minds of the editorial.