Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, passed the government's 2005 budget on Friday - but opposition parties said they would be launching a Constitutional Court challenge. The budget was carried by the Social Democrats-Greens coalition majority after a four-day debate in which Finance Minister Hans Eichel Tuesday outlined overall spending of 254.3 billion euros (337 billion dollars). However the opposition center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and liberal Free Democrats announced they would be filing a complaint next month to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. CDU deputy Ronald Pofalla, who is to head economic affairs for the party's parliamentary group, said Eichel had "intentionally violated" the constitution. During this week's debate Eichel said government's budget shortfall would be halved to 22 billion euros from this year. After three successive years in which Germany has breached the 3 per cent deficit limit under euro stability pact rules, Eichel said the national budget deficit would be just under 3 per cent of gross domestic product in 2005. Privatization plans in the budget to sell off more than 17 billion euros worth of public assets and the near identical levels of the planned deficit and capital spending have spawned complaints the spending plan runs contrary to the constitution. The Bundestag on Tuesday approved this year's supplementary budget of 43.5 billion euros, a post-war record and well above investment volume.
