The growing ideological disputes over fiscal policy and EU integration in Germany's governing coalition provide a preview for not only the country's 2021 general election , but German domestic and foreign politics for at least the next half-decade. Germany's finance minister Olaf Scholz, who is a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), recently said that the European Commission should be permanently allowed to issue debt on behalf of the 27 members of the European Union , and also suggested that Germany's constitutional debt brake, which was suspended earlier this year, should not be reintroduced in 2021. Scholz's partners in the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) then criticized both statements, arguing the commission should only issue debt to pay for pandemic-related economic relief measures and requested Scholz present a plan to restore fiscal stability in Germany.