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Morning edition · Tuesday, 10 November 2026

POLITICS · DESK NOTE

€1.4 billion of room and about €10 billion of wishes: the budget's last 48 hours

Before Thursday's committee session, the coalition is haggling over a plastics tax, a sugar tax, a children's top-up and an electricity tax cut. The arithmetic is less dramatic than the noise, and tighter.

Politics & Institutions Dr. Benjamin Koch / The Desk 2 min read3 sources

The coalition has until Thursday. That is when the Bundestag’s Budget Committee begins its final “Bereinigungssitzung” on the 2027 budget, which traditionally runs into the early hours of Friday3. Bild reported a Monday-evening mediation meeting of the two parliamentary group leaders, Thorsten Frei (CDU) and Matthias Miersch (SPD), Merkur writes3; no result had been reported by the time this edition closed.

The frame. The draft plans core spending of €555.4 billion and new core borrowing of €118.7 billion; including the special funds for the armed forces and infrastructure, new borrowing reaches €203.7 billion1. The autumn tax estimate brings the federal government about €3.9 billion more, but the debt brake lets it borrow €2.5 billion less because the economic forecast improved, leaving about €1.4 billion of extra room on paper1.

The wish list. The plastics tax would raise about €670 million in 2027 and about €1.5 billion a year from 20281. “Die Plastiksteuer machen wir nicht,” Frei said on ZDF (“We won’t do the plastics tax”)1. The sugar tax, worth about €690 million next year, looks likelier to come, though parts of the Union want to delay it to 1 January 20281,2. The Union wants an electricity tax cut for everyone and a further offset of bracket creep, each costing about €5 billion, with no counter-financing1. The SPD wants to keep the €25 children’s top-up and avoid housing-benefit cuts, about €770 million together1,3. Environment Minister Carsten Schneider said the Union now has to propose “wie wir das Loch im Haushalt schließen” (“how we close the hole”)2.

The year that matters. The finance ministry’s own figures show an uncovered gap of about €25 billion in 2028, €40 billion in 2029 and €50 billion in 2030, about €115 billion in total1. Every permanent tax cut agreed this week lands in those years.

For you, the headlines will be about plastic and sugar. The line to read on Friday morning is the one that says how each new promise is paid for.

What to watch

  • The Budget Committee's final session starts on Thursday 12 November and traditionally runs into the early hours of Friday3.
  • Whether the plastics tax survives, and what replaces it if not1,2.
Desk comment

A budget is a list of promises with prices next to them. The prices are the honest part.

Sources

  1. Bundesregierung verhandelt über Haushalt: Was auf dem Spiel steht — ZDFheute, 8 Nov 2026, 19:12 CET.
  2. Zucker-, Plastik- und Stromsteuer: Die offenen Baustellen im Haushalt — tagesschau.de, 9 Nov 2026, 17:24 CET.
  3. Merz-Regierung im Clinch um Haushalt 2027 – heute wohl Schlichtungsgipfel — Merkur, 9 Nov 2026, 10:43 CET.

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