$67 Billion Stimulus for Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government said its second economic stimulus package will be pushed through parliament "as quickly as possible," shrugging off criticism from allies over financing the measures.

Lawmakers, who are still enjoying the seasonal recess, will be called to Berlin on Jan. 14 or Jan. 15, almost a week earlier than planned, to discuss the steps in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, the government said today in an e- mailed statement.

Merkel's determination to implement the program, worth between 40 billion euros ($54 billion) and 50 billion euros over two years, comes as senior members of her Christian Democratic Union criticized plans to finance the measures through debt. Guenther Oettinger, prime minister of the state of Baden- Wuerttemberg, told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper he may oppose the package in the upper house of parliament, where Germany's 16 states are represented.

"With all this pressure, Merkel's apparent resolve to leapfrog the critics and push new measures through parliament may serve her and her party well," said Hans-Juergen Hoffmann, managing director of Hamburg-based polling company Psephos. "Merkel's got an unenviable job: She needs to send a signal that she puts country before party -- and she may just pull it off."

Working Groups

A final decision on the government's second stimulus program, discussed by the coalition parties in Berlin yesterday, is not due before another meeting scheduled on Jan. 12, spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said yesterday. Five working groups have been established to hammer out the details.

"I'm confident that we will reach agreement over the coming week by the time of the next coalition meeting," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leader of Merkel's Social Democratic Party coalition partner and her challenger at national elections in September, told reporters last night.

The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, forced into a grand coalition in November 2005, face what Merkel has called a "super election year," with a state election in Hesse on Jan. 18 followed by a presidential election in May, European elections in June and another three state ballots in August before the federal election on Sept. 27.

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