{"id":8519,"date":"2026-04-29T14:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T14:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8519\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T14:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T14:18:08","slug":"german-finance-minister-doesnt-rule-out-emergency-borrowing-as-trumps-irresponsible-war-bites-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8519\/","title":{"rendered":"German finance minister doesn\u2019t rule out emergency borrowing as \u2018Trump\u2019s irresponsible war\u2019 bites \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Klingbeil\u2019s comments are likely to irritate his coalition partners in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s Christian Democrats, who have rejected calls from the left for additional borrowing. The conservatives are under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/europe-poll-of-polls\/germany\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">now leading in many national polls<\/a> \u2014 which has frequently attacked the chancellor for taking on hundreds of billions of euros of debt in an effort to stimulate growth.<\/p>\n<p>Berlin is now putting the defibrillators on an economy facing a fourth straight year of stagnation. It will borrow nearly \u20ac200 billion next year under the outline of a budget draft agreed on Tuesday by ministers, and another \u20ac600 billion over the next three years.<\/p>\n<p>Of that, some \u20ac85 billion will be borrowed by new &#8220;special funds&#8221; earmarked for spending on infrastructure and defense, as Berlin tries to make up for decades of underinvestment in both areas.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the year, the government had to reckon with over 1 percent growth, but Klingbeil lamented that it had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/german-government-slashes-economy-growth-forecasts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">had to halve its forecast<\/a> due to &#8220;Trump\u2019s irresponsible war on Iran and the worldwide energy price shock that it has caused.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not our war, but we are massively feeling its effects,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Klingbeil also said that the tariffs raised by the U.S. President last year are having a profound effect on Germany\u2019s export-driven economy. His new budget aimed to make the economy &#8220;more resilient&#8221; and looked forward to a time &#8220;when we don\u2019t have to let ourselves be blackmailed by the USA,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The budget outline also incorporates a broad range of measures to cut spending and raise money in other ways to plug various financing gaps, notably in the country\u2019s health system, which is set to receive the proceeds of a new tax on sugary drinks.  <\/p>\n<p>Johanna Treeck contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Klingbeil\u2019s comments are likely to irritate his coalition partners in German Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s Christian Democrats, who have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[309,7864,420,479,446,4259,666,393,5,689,253,8343,629,481,409,2379],"class_list":{"0":"post-8519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-budget","9":"tag-debt","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-energy-prices","13":"tag-exports","14":"tag-finance","15":"tag-friedrich-merz","16":"tag-germany","17":"tag-growth","18":"tag-iran","19":"tag-tariffs","20":"tag-trade","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-war","23":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}