The plans needed a two-thirds majority of at least 489 votes in parliament's lower house, the Bundestag, because they involve changes to Germany's strict self-imposed borrowing rules — the "debt brake," which allows new borrowing worth only 0.35% of annual gross domestic product and is anchored in the constitution. That forced the prospective coalition partners into negotiations with the environmentalist Greens to get enough votes.
The package will exempt from the debt rules spending on defense and security, including intelligence agencies and assistance to Ukraine, worth more than 1% of GDP. It also foresees a 500 billion-euro ($544 billion) fund, financed by borrowing, to pour funding into Germany's infrastructure over the next 12 years and help restore the stagnant economy — Europe's biggest — to growth.
At the Greens' insistence, 100 billion euros from the investment fund will go into climate-related spending.