In 2009, when the german GDP was literally collapsing and the finance minister was a social democrat, Germany passed a constitutional amendment that will prohibit the federal government and states from running any structural budget deficit from 2016 if the economy is not in deep recession.
Merkel's CDU/CSU staunchly opposes the idea of giving a Fed-style dual mandate (price stability and jobs) to the European Central Bank. The jobs mandate would allow the European Central Bank to do virtually anything in order to "fix the economy". A pretext for massive interventions.