The German government's plan for significantly cutting down military aid to Ukraine, as laid out in the latest draft budget, is being met with severe criticism from both inside and outside the traffic light coalition.
Germany's parliament on Friday approved a revised 2024 budget that will reinstate strict debt limits after a shock legal ruling forced Chancellor Olaf Scholz to redraw his spending plans.
Germany on Friday passed a 2021 budget that once again smashes its "debt brake" rule, promising to shield businesses and workers from the economic hit of the pandemic as cases continue to rise.
Germany plans to take on €166
billion in new debt next year, according to a draft bill seen by AFP, as
measures to curb the second wave of the pandemic eat into government coffers.
Germany’s record federal budget surplus has renewed a fiery debate about tax cuts. Different coalitions are now proposing their own tax-relief programs, with widely different priorities.
German economic growth plummeted in
2019, official data is expected to show Wednesday, stoking renewed debate about how to use fiscal surpluses to boost gross domestic product.
Germany faced renewed pressure on Friday to boost public spending and help revive a sputtering European economy, a day after the European Central Bank warned it had reached the limit of its powers to avert recession.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz presented a 2020 budget that sticks to the country's longstanding no-new-debts "black zero" policy, defying speculation on financial markets that Berlin might borrow to fund investments.
Next year marks 30 years since East and West Germany came together. But the Interior Ministry appeared to overlook the special anniversary – and was forced to ask for €61 million to pay for reunification celebrations.
It was a lively day in German politics on Wednesday, as politicians debated Brexit, the budget, migrants - and even the Alternative for Germany's (AfD)suspicious party donations.
France and Germany have agreed on the broad outlines of a proposed eurozone budget which they will present to EU finance ministers in Brussels on Monday, a French finance ministry source said.
Critics of government tax policy had called for the Finance Minister to signal tax cuts for middle income earners in a forecast on 2019 revenues on Thursday. But Minister Scholz said the government would stick to its current course.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a long-awaited answer to French President Emmanuel Macron's ambitious call for European Union reforms Sunday, offering olive branches on investment and help for debt-mired eurozone member states.
State-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn aims to win over more customers on long-distance routes in Germany with budget-friendly offers set to be put in place later this summer.
Bickering broke out within Chancellor Angela Merkel's hard-fought coalition on Wednesday, as German budget plans left the defence and international development ministries out in the cold.
Germany's federal statistics authority on Friday revised down its reckoning of the country's government budget surplus in 2017, but the overshoot remained at record levels.
The far-right Alternative for
Germany (AfD) party secured the chair of the country's powerful budget committee on Tuesday, after being repeatedly shunned for top parliamentary jobs which were shared out among more established parties.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde has joined calls on Germany to invest in future economic growth even at the cost of relaxing its cherished budgetary discipline, raising hackles in Europe's powerhouse.
The German parties trying to thrash out a coalition agreement have reached an early deal to stick to the country's balanced budget, continuing former finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble's "black zero" policy.
The German state notched up a record budget surplus between January and June, official figures showed
Friday, as Europe's largest economy continued to grow strongly.
The Finance Ministry said the government achieved a federal budget surplus of €6.2 billion last year - and politicians are already fighting over what to do with it.
Germany expects to keep its budget in balance until at least 2020 despite increased spending related to refugees, according to a government document obtained by AFP on Tuesday.
Germany ran up a record surplus in its public finances in 2015, with Europe's biggest economy showing "solid and consistent" growth last year, the federal statistics office said on Tuesday.
