{"id":33593,"date":"2025-07-30T14:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33593\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T14:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T14:18:08","slug":"germanys-budget-woes-set-to-return-finance-minister-warns-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/33593\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s budget woes set to return, finance minister warns \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

In order to avoid a similar fate, Merz \u2014 before even taking office \u2014 moved to pass landmark legislation<\/a> loosening Germany\u2019s so-called debt brake, overturning years of self-imposed fiscal austerity and allowing for massive spending on defense while unlocking \u20ac500 billion in borrowing for infrastructure. But despite that legislation, a major budget gap still looms, forcing Merz’s government to make tough spending decisions in the next several months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no time to lose now,\u201d said Klingbeil, a leader of the SPD. “Everyone in the cabinet will have to save. There\u2019ll be a strict consolidation course, which I also demand of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Klingbeil, who also serves as vice chancellor, proposed a combination of measures to close the 2027 budgetary gap. He said the German economy must grow more rapidly to increase revenue while, at the same time, the government reassesses subsidies.<\/p>\n

The \u20ac30 billion gap projected for 2027 is due to increased interest rate payments and to new coalition spending on measures such as the so-called \u201cmothers’ pension\u201d \u2014 a benefit that grants additional retirement credits to parents who spent time raising children instead of working \u2014 Klingbeil said.<\/p>\n

Even if the necessary cuts are found, the coalition’s spending crunch is not likely to end in 2027. The government will have to close a budgetary gap of approximately \u20ac172 billion by 2029, according to the finance ministry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In order to avoid a similar fate, Merz \u2014 before even taking office \u2014 moved to pass landmark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[455,458,84,460,140,1294,461,4176,2794,145,2923,464,814,2799,468,4178,305,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-33593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-austerity","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-debt","tag-defense","tag-economy","tag-elections","tag-finance","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-growth","tag-infrastructure","tag-interest-rates","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-payments","tag-pensions","tag-policy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}