Germany poised to kill off Swiss Rubik deal?

Just in from our colleagues in Berlin: 17h00 GMT

The finance minister of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Norbert Walter-Borjans, has just published a press release, saying that the Green and SPD länder will say No to the Swiss deal. (This is significant because there had been some uncertainty as to whether there would be enough breakaway SPD and Green Länder members, such as Baden-Württemberg, to allow the government to scrape enough of a majority to push the rotten Swiss-German tax deal through, which we've blogged on many occasions.)

It is significant that Walter-Borjans says "länder": by including the Greens, he also includes Baden-Württemberg. This represents grounds for hope. 


Read more about Switzerland's poisonous Rubik deals here.
Photo credit: Susanne Jakoby - demonstrators against Rubik outside the Bundestag