SIX of Dr Helmut Kohl's entourage broke off an official tour of Asia last night to fly back to Bonn for an emergency debate amid growing signs of tension within Germany's ruling centre-right coalition.
The chancellor rejected a demand from the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) that he should himself return for the debate on next year's budget. But he sent the six deputies from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Liberal Free Democrats (FDP) to shore up his government's slender majority in the Bundestag.
The SPD accuses the chancellor and his Finance Minister, Mr. Theo Waigel, of creating "fiscal chaos" and mismanaging the budget. Mr Waigel insisted yesterday that Germany would meet the criteria for entry into the European Monetary Union (EMU), despite a forecast to the contrary by the country's top economic research institutes.
"The federal government will continue its strict consolidation course. It will create the conditions so that the 1997 deficit lies below 3 per cent of gross domestic product. The necessary decisions will be met in the final negotiations over the 1997 budget," Mr Waigel said.
The institutes say that Germany's economy is getting stronger but they predict that next year's budget deficit will be 3.5 per cent and that public debt would exceed the EMU limit of 60 per cent. Mr Waigel is among the most vociferous advocates of a strict interpretation of the Maastricht criteria for entry to EMU, arguing that the single European currency must be at least as stable as the mark.
His task in drawing up next year's budget has been made more difficult by the refusal of the Liberals to agree to new tax rises. The Liberals, who often appear on the verge of disappearing from the political map, have sought recently an identity as the party of low taxation. They brought the coalition close to collapse earlier this month.
