Constitutional conundrums, Covid costs
Dear Reader,
Friday is the last day of debating in the Bundestag before the summer break. And it will provide an interesting example of whether the new government under Friedrich Merz will be any more stable than the gaggle that Olaf Scholz tried to keep in order.
On the one hand - thanks to Merz's debt tricks passed before the new Bundestag formed - the next four years should be like an open bar: every coalition MP will get to pick a tasty cocktail to bring back to their constituents. On the other, the polarisation spreading through the West is making centrist lawmakers increasingly twitchy. In other words: it is 2am at this open bar - punches may be thrown from the most unexpected of angles.
On Friday, the Bundestag is voting on the nomination of three new judges to the Constitutional Court. Much like the Supreme Court in the US, Germany’s Bundesverfassungsgericht is the highest authority in the land. Its judges can strike down laws passed by the federal government if they deem them to…