BERLIN (MNI) – The German government on Sunday won the backing of
the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, for Germany’s ratification
of the EU fiscal compact and the new European bailout fund, the ESM.
The government gave in to demands to grant the states and
municipalities more federal aid, Kurt Beck, the prime minister of the
SPD-governed Rhineland-Palatinate, said after the negotiations between
the federal and the state governments in the Chancellery. The SPD is the
largest opposition party in the country.
Since ratification of the fiscal compact in Germany requires a
two-thirds majority in the Bundestag, the lower house, and the
Bundesrat, which represents Germany’s 16 states, the government camp
needs support from the opposition.
On Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition
government and the main opposition parties in the Bundestag reached a
deal for the ratification of the fiscal compact in the lower house of
parliament on June 29 along with the ratification of the ESM. The
Bundesrat will also vote on June 29 on the two bills.
Yet it will likely still take several weeks before the bills will
become law. German President Joachim Gauck said on Thursday that he
planned to delay signing the ESM and the fiscal compact bills. The
German Constitutional Court had asked him to wait until it had decided
on requests for preliminary injunctions that have been filed against the
two bills, Gauck said.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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