The central bank has urged budget restraint as Berlin ramps up military spending<\/p>\n
Germany is on track to post its largest budget deficit since reunification, the country\u2019s central bank has warned, as Berlin ramps up military spending and financial aid to Ukraine.
\nIn its December forecast, published on Friday, the Bundesbank said the government shortfall will rise steadily and reach 4.8% of economic output by 2028, the highest level since 1995, when deficits peaked in the years following German reunification. Public debt is also expected to increase over the same period.
\nThe Bundesbank has linked the rising deficit mainly to higher defense spending, continued financial support to Ukraine, large infrastructure projects, tax cuts, and increased social payments.
\nAccording to the Bundesbank, Berlin\u2019s current plans to invest hundreds of billions of euros into the military and infrastructure mark a departure from Germany\u2019s \u201ccourse of fiscal restraint\u201d and, without corrective measures, would leave borrowing \u201cwell above the limits of the debt brake.\u201d The central bank has called for urgent action to keep public finances in check.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Merz\u2019s \u2018stupid decisions\u2019 led to Germany\u2019s economic woes \u2013 Putin envoy<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pushed to expand Germany\u2019s military, build \u201cthe strongest conventional army in Europe,\u201d and continue support for Ukraine. German aid to Kiev could reach $13.2 billion in 2026, according to Reuters. Merz has justified higher defense spending by citing what he describes as a Russian threat.
\nMoscow has repeatedly rejected such claims, stressing that it has no intention of attacking NATO or the EU and accusing Western officials of using the supposed \u201cRussian threat\u201d as fear-mongering to justify inflated military budgets. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused Germany and the wider EU of sliding into a \u201cFourth Reich\u201d marked by Russophobia and aggressive militarization.
\nBerlin has been faced with growing political discontent, with polls showing strong public dissatisfaction with Merz and his coalition government. An INSA survey earlier this month found that 70% of respondents are unhappy with the ruling coalition while Merz\u2019s personal approval rating declined to just 23%. The pollsters noted these were \u201cthe worst ratings ever recorded for the chancellor and his government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The central bank has urged budget restraint as Berlin ramps up military spending Germany is on track to post its largest budget deficit since reunification, the country\u2019s central bank has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}