{"id":17820,"date":"2024-03-21T21:31:04","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17820"},"modified":"2024-03-21T21:31:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:31:04","slug":"germany-sos-for-economy-new-austerity-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=17820","title":{"rendered":"Germany: SOS for economy new austerity measures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A clear warning to the German government that the fiscal figures of the German economy will soon be out of control is addressed &#8211; once again &#8211; by the Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, who calls for an urgent change of course in terms of government policy and the implementation of austerity measures .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite these warnings, the row over spending is expected to escalate within the German government in the coming months, with budget deficits expected to be a battleground between the parties in Olaf Scholz&#8217;s tripartite governing coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Budget 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With negotiations on the 2025 budget already under way, it is clear that much is at stake. However, the picture is further complicated after Germany&#8217;s Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot transfer the 60 billion euros earmarked for tackling the coronavirus crisis to other areas of the budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Court ruled that this move was unconstitutional. Since then, the government has been in a state of crisis and has been trying to cut spending from the budget in various sectors, including the agricultural sector that caused the recent mass mobilizations of farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The unfavorable scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;In an adverse scenario, growing financing deficits will lead to an increase in debt relative to economic output to about 345% in the long term,&#8221; says the relevant Sustainability report recently published by his office.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;In a favorable scenario, this percentage will increase to around 140% of gross domestic product by 2070,&#8221; the report points out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Under EU law, Germany has capped its debt levels at 60% of economic output, which requires dramatic spending cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aging population<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But a critical factor is Germany&#8217;s rapidly aging population, with a debt boom looming as more citizens head into retirement, while tax revenues shrink and the welfare system swells &#8211; in part due to an exploding immigrant population of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lindner&#8217;s partners, the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD), are strongly opposed to cutting spending further, as they believe it would damage their electoral chances and prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, Labor Minister Hubertus Heil is pushing for a new pension package that will add billions to the nation&#8217;s debt, which Lindner notably supports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A clear warning to the German government that the fiscal figures of the German economy will soon be out of control is addressed &#8211;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[818,390],"tags":[3062,1983,489],"class_list":["post-17820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-politics","tag-austerity","tag-economy","tag-germany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17822,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17820\/revisions\/17822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}