# Federal budgets run a ‘black zero’ surplus path

Date: 2014

From 2014 federal budgets under [Schäuble](/people/wolfgang-schauble) and then [Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) ran without new net borrowing, the schwarze Null. Public investment lagged. The surplus path is a completed fiscal stance of her later terms.

### Context

Germany's *schwarze Null* ("black zero") was a political shorthand for balancing the federal budget without net new borrowing. It became especially associated with the finance ministry under Wolfgang Schäuble and the [Merkel](/people/angela-merkel) government. In November 2014, the federal government described the Bundestag's 2015 budget as a budget without new debt and said it would be the first such federal budget since 1969. This is a fiscal-policy choice, not a synonym for Germany's constitutional debt brake: the debt brake is a legal fiscal rule, while *schwarze Null* describes the stronger political objective of avoiding new federal borrowing altogether. Source: [German Federal Government, 28 November 2014](https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte/haushalt-ohne-neue-schulden-399304).

### Record

The policy moved from target to reported outcome. Germany's public broadcaster Tagesschau reported in January 2015 that the federal government had already closed 2014 without taking on new debt, a year earlier than the formal 2015 target, and described that as the first such result since 1969. The balanced-budget stance continued through a period of strong revenues and low financing costs. By 2019, the IMF recorded a fifth consecutive general-government surplus for 2018. That sequence matters because it separates the political slogan from a single one-year accounting event: *schwarze Null* became a repeated governing constraint and reference point in budget debates. Sources: [Tagesschau, 13 January 2015](https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bundeshaushalt-103.html) and [IMF, 10 July 2019](https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2019/07/09/pr-19270-germany-imf-executive-board-concludes-2019-article-iv-consultation-with-germany).

## People

- Angela Merkel: https://factrail.ai/people/angela-merkel

## Drivers

- Public-Debt Sustainability: https://factrail.ai/drivers/public-debt-sustainability

## Sources

- https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/schwerpunkte/haushalt-ohne-neue-schulden-399304
- https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2019/07/09/pr-19270-germany-imf-executive-board-concludes-2019-article-iv-consultation-with-germany
- https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bundeshaushalt-103.html
- https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Government/Public-Finance/_node.html
- https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Web/EN/Issues/Public-Finances/public-finances.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/de-schwarze-null