Tax & Spend
Germany’s Debt Dilemma Tempts Finance Chief Into Bending Rules
- Debt brake limits new borrowing with aim of meeting EU rules
- Finance Minister Lindner stands by €200 billion energy package
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Germany’s finance minister plans to slam the debt brake back on this year even as he spends billions to cushion the fiscally conservative country from the energy crisis, a challenge that requires some uncharacteristic rule-bending.
Europe’s biggest economy has had plenty of reasons to justify the decision to suspend its constitutionally enshrined limit on net new borrowing in 2020, when the bloc was engulfed by a pandemic that turned out to be only the first of a series of crises.