New Delhi, March 12 -- Whether John Maynard Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind" is often disputed, but the witticism has never seemed more apt.

to-be Friedrich Merz, long a fiscal hawk as the leader of Germany's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), recently made an about-turn on the virtues of higher deficit spending after being briefed on the country's dwindling growth prospects and witnessing geopolitical gyrations in the US, which seems keen to patch up with Russia, potentially leaving its European allies in the lurch.

The irony is that Merz campaigned as a fiscal conservative ahead of last month's German elections, which delivered a victory for the CDU and its allies. Merz is also a former executive of B...