German Chancellor Angela Merkel has fended off growing calls for more fiscal sti...
BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has fended off growing calls for more fiscal stimulus by citing the slow outflow of existing federal funds - but data suggests the money is indeed being used up as local authority bottlenecks gradually clear.
But this excuse seems no longer valid: Figures from the finance ministry show that towns and municipalities are now tapping the federal government’s funds more actively, suggesting that planning and labor bottlenecks are easing. “As you can see, the program is running very well,” a finance ministry spokeswoman said, adding that the take-up had jumped by nearly 2 billion euros over the past 12 months.
“That partly explains the initial problems with the slow take-up of federal funds - it takes time to hire new staff and get the ball rolling,” Landsberg explained. Like Merkel and her conservatives, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz of the jointly governing, center-left Social Democrats has shown little appetite so far to ditch the balanced budget goal and boost investments through new debt.
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