A former German Federal Constitutional Court judge, Peter Huber, has deemed the planned constitutional amendment to relax the debt brake as unconstitutional. “In my opinion, it involves unconstitutional constitutional law” Huber told the Frankfurt General Newspaper’s Friday edition. “If the regulation had stood, it would be a coup d’état.”
Huber believes the constitutional autonomy of the states is being violated. The constitution has previously limited the debt possibilities of the states and, thereby, their constitutional autonomy, he said. These limitations could be expanded or abolished. Then, the state constitutional bodies would be free to decide whether and to what extent they would make use of this freedom.
Now, the federal government wants to render the debt brake of the state constitutions ineffective. This would make the states “provinces” the former judge fears. The states, however, have “state quality.” “Administrative bodies, whose constitutional order is prescribed by the higher level, are not states any more, but self-administration bodies” Huber argued.