Astrid Mayer Die sogenannte Schuldenbremse im Grundgesetz

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Art. 109 para. 3 clause 5 Basic Law may be deemed as one of the most revolutionary rules in recent history of the German constitution. This article comprises the duty for the German federal states to implement rules avoiding revenue from credits in economically normal years.

This raises the issue of whether such an approach is permissible under constitutional law. Is the Federal Government entitled to set out binding requirements to the State Governments in concern of their competence to take out loans without suppression of their function as self-governing states? Therefore the first focus of the dissertation is to analyze whether the rule in the German constitution, which confines raising of credits in the federal states, can be considered as constitutional. The analysis examines possible breaches of the federal principle as well as of the principle of democracy. The author concludes that the function as self-governing states does not require the ability of the federal states to dispose of specific sources of revenues, such as taking out loans. The constitutional analysis is complemented by an economic analysis. The author states that the core element of the financial constitution of German Base Law is not financing by credit but financing by tax. For this reason only financing through taxes can be considered as a sustainable source of revenue, but not the raise of public debt. Therefore the German federal states cannot be deemed as limited in their statehood with view to the existing constitutional limitations in their power to raise taxes.

In the second focus covers the presentation, analysis and constitutional evaluation of the implementation of the rules of German Basic Law by the federal states. Hereby, the federal states are free to choose whether to implement the limitation of public borrowing in their federal constitution or only to implement it in their financial regulation. The author investigates in detail the interdiction of aggravation in article 143d para. 1 clause 3 German Basic law, as well as the definition of the economic component of taking on debts by the federal states in detail. The current status of implementation of each federal state is analyzed and reviewed for its constitutionality with German Basic Law. In three cases (Rheinland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia) the author challenges the constitutionality of the implementation.