BERLIN — Germany’s new coalition committee met for the first time on Wednesday and agreed a work program to deal with budgetary and other key issues before the summer break.
“By the middle of the year, everyone should be able to see that Germany is making progress,” states a paper published by the ruling parties. “We will lay the foundations by swiftly adopting the 2025 and 2026 budgets and making significant investments.”
The paper says another law must be passed before money from a €500 billion special fund to finance infrastructure can begin to flow, which will happen “by the summer.”
The package contains no unexpected measures but brings back 62 highlights from the coalition agreement — which the government wants to have on track before the mid-July parliamentary summer break.
This was the first coalition committee meeting between Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union party and Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil’s Social Democrats, and lasted just a few hours. They agreed to hold such meetings as a regular fixture.
It was considered a good start by observers. Meetings of the previous government, led by Olaf Scholz, often lasted until the early hours of the morning and became more of a crisis instrument. Scholz’s government fell apart during a fractious coalition committee meeting on Nov. 6, 2024, leading to new elections this year.
Among the 62 measures agreed are tax changes including a reduction in the electricity tax and on-trend, regulation-busting moves: The national supply chain act will be abolished, for example, and the document states that the European supply chain act should be implemented “in a low-bureaucracy and enforcement-friendly manner.”
Besides economic issues, the program includes items on migration, electoral law, modernization of the state and a subject close to the heart of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: the hunting of wolves.
“It’s all happening now,” Merz said in a statement to present the program.
Klingbeil, who also serves as finance minister, added: “We all want to see improvements quickly in everyday life, at work and in every region.”
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