You are right, the off-budget fund (Sondervermögen) for infrastructure also needed a 2/3 vote. I was under the impression that the 500 billion credit and how it will be spend was just part of the negotiations for the dept brake reform. My bad.

Yes but the next budget can then be done by a simple 51% majority which is the regular coalition. This dept brake change needed a 2/3 vote and lays the foundation for easier budgets in the future.

Why would this only last 4 years? It’s a constitution change. It does not magically undo itself after a certain time.

It’s one of the last pieces of land where we ourselves still have some power over those old fucks. But democracy is fragile.

I’m a millennial who was happy to not be required to go through military training back when it was still a thing but already phasing out. Bundeswehr was a thing for gun fanatics and manly men, nothing that was actually necessary. I was a pacifist. My work ethics today are now close to what Gen Z apparently has. Work is simply not the center of my life anymore.

These days I’m wondering if a 40 year old man (in better shape than my 18 year old self though) can still enlist voluntarily because I want to fight for our European values. I’d rather die in battle than being occupied by power hungry dictators. Not sure this Gen Z guy understands that his work life balance days are over if that happens.