The Economist and it’s AfD problem!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 05, 2025

Editor: Reader look at the numbers in the German Election:

With vote counting finished, preliminary results show the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) won the election with 28.6% of the vote.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) , which has been designated in parts as extremist, came in second with 20.8%.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-explained-in-graphics/a-71724186

The Economist sings parises for Friedrich Merz! It readership and its writer/editors need a coaching to realize what? Is it possible that the Economist writers and editors of this newspaper, ignore the fact that 28.06% of the vote compared to 20.8 % of the vote represent less than a stunning victory for Friedrich Merz.

Leaders | Well done, Mr Merz

A fantastic start for Friedrich Merz

The incoming chancellor signals massive increases in defence and infrastructure spending

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/03/05/a-fantastic-start-for-friedrich-merz

FOR YEARS Germany’s aversion to debt has been a millstone, leading to crippling underinvestment in defence and infrastructure and weighing down both the domestic economy and that of Europe as a whole. But, although he will not become chancellor for some weeks, Friedrich Merz, who won Germany’s election on February 23rd, has just transformed his country with a stroke of commendable boldness.

On March 4th Mr Merz revealed plans for two changes to the debt brake, a constitutional provision in place since 2009 that lets the government run only minuscule structural deficits. Next week parliament will be recalled to vote on them. In a sign that change is genuinely under way, long-term German bond yields leapt, as hard-nosed investors began to price in higher borrowing.

Editor: The Reader might think that Mario Buatta,The Prince of Chintz, had returned in a political guise! Such are the decorative floriches and faux imbroidery of its political enthusiasms!

Paragraph 1:

The first reform will establish a brake-exempted infrastructure fund of €500bn ($535bn) over ten years, a boost worth around 1% of GDP each year. This should get the economy moving, and not before time. Germany has been in recession for the past two years, and is bumping along with roughly zero growth this year, too.

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Paragraph 2 :

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It is to exempt any defence spending beyond 1% of GDP from the debt brake altogether. This opens the way for Germany to do what it should have done a long time ago. It can now start to rearm to a level where it can play the full part in the changed landscape of European defence that its size and geographical position demands.

Paragraph 3:

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Currently Germany spends only a bare 2% of GDP on defence, just about meeting a target that NATO first set in 2014, but one that the government did not take seriously before Russia launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Paragraph 4:

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Under Donald Trump, America no longer appears to be a dependable ally; so Europe must look to its own defences. That will need Germany to spend a lot more cash—and to spend it effectively, which has not been the case in the past.

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Paragraph 5: The Oxbridger Faux Chintz has lost its power to beguile the Reader, as it faces the fact of AfT !

Because the debt brake is a constitutional provision, amending it requires a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag. Hence the urgency. The hard-right Alternative for Germany party opposes any change to the rules, and the radical-left Die Linke opposes any extra defence spending. Both did well in the election; together they will have over a third of the seats in the new Bundestag, a blocking minority.

Paragraph 6: Faux Chintz fades into the shopworn: ‘Germany was a slumbering giant. Mr Merz is waking it up’.

And there may be more to come. The potential new coalition is also talking about further reforms to the debt brake, which implies yet more spending on other underfunded areas. Germany was a slumbering giant. Mr Merz is waking it up.

Newspaper Reader.