Bundestag approves constitutional amendments to unblock military aid to Ukraine

Ukrinform correspondent reports on this.

The bill to amend the Basic Law was supported by the votes of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Green factions.

Thus, the bill received 513 votes out of the required 489 (two-thirds) votes of all members of the German parliament.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party, two left-wing parties, The Left and the Sahra Wagenknecht Bloc, and one democratic party, the Free Democrats, voted against, with a total of 207 deputies.

A total of 720 parliamentarians voted.

The document was submitted to parliament by the parliamentary groups of the Social Democratic Party and the conservative Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union.

In future, defense spending and certain types of security spending exceeding 1% of nominal GDP will be exempt from the debt rule.

Within the framework of this provision, he gives the “green light” to unblock 3 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine.

Read also: Germany has handed over another package of military aid to Ukraine

In addition, a special fund of 500 billion euros will be created for additional investments in infrastructure and projects aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2045. Local authorities will also be granted the right to additional borrowing when preparing the budgets of the federal states.

The bill already received approval from the Bundestag Budget Committee on March 16.

The introduction of the bill is the result of negotiations between the CDU/CSU and the SPD, which are discussing the formation of a new government. In order to secure the necessary majority, the two parties had to agree on a joint vote with the Greens, who were able to include some of their demands in the draft document.

The newly elected parliament and government will have to implement the decision taken by the current Bundestag.

The vote marked the end of the work of the 20th Bundestag.

The new parliament will meet for its first session next week, on March 25.

It should be noted that German Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz plans to complete coalition negotiations by Easter (April 20).

As reported, taking into account the €3 billion, the amount allocated in the German budget (which has not yet been approved) for military aid to Ukraine will reach €7 billion, which is almost the same as last year.