German judges toss a spanner into the government’s spending plans

ARAP ON the knuckles hurts. It hurts even more when delivered with a gavel by the highest court in the land. For Germany’s governing coalition, a judgment issued on November 15th by the Federal Constitutional Court, retroactively blocking a transfer of unspent funds that were originally earmarked for covid-19 to other purposes, is both a political embarrassment and a budget nightmare. More subtly, the ruling is also a reprimand to Germany as a whole, showing how the national obsession with imposing “debt brakes” on government spending leads to all kinds of silliness.The sum involved, €60bn ($65bn), is big. It had been borrowed in early 2021, by Germany’s previous government, outside the regular budget to cover expected extra spending on the covid emergency. This needed special dispensation because of Germany’s constitutionally enshrined limits on budget deficits.