In what can be interpreted as a damning verdict against recent regional crisis efforts, Germany’s central bank on Tuesday said that it had set aside nearly double its risk provisions from 2012, warning that the eurozone crisis “is not over despite the interim calm on financial markets.”
Europe’s largest economy, Germany, will return to growth in the first quarter of 2013, predicted the Bundesbank on Monday, alleviating fears of a technical recession, after its GDP contracted by 0.6 percent in the last quarter of 2012.
The Bundesbank’s monthly report for February forecasted that the rest of 2013 would see a gradual pick-up in economic activity for Germany; though severe recessions in other euro member countries may continue to dampen regional growth, it said.
In a stroke of irony unlikely to be lost in Greece, some 35 city-state Parliamentarians and other officials from Germany’s capital of Berlin are set to visit Athens this April to study the effects of austerity, reported Der Speigel, in the hopes of addressing the capital’s own massive budget deficit, which is one of the highest in the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned citizens to be prepared for a tough year ahead and urged patience as the eurozone sovereign debt crisis extends into its fourth year.
In her New Year message, the Chancellor warned that 2013 will be “even more difficult” even if the reform measures designed to address the roots of European sovereign debt crisis are beginning to bear fruit.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for the first time on Sunday, hinted that her government may ultimately accept a write-off of Greek debt in the future; but stated that Athens first had to fulfil their fiscal targets, including posting a budget surplus by 2014/2015.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble announced on Wednesday that the nation’s tax receipts for this year would be at least 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) higher than previously forecasted “due to favourable economic trends pushing up wage income and company profits.”
Germany’s push towards renewable energy sources will cause a sharp increase in electricity prices for consumers next year, reported AFP on Monday, with green power surcharges expected to rise by 47 percent while overall electricity costs will also go up by 7 percent.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has once again affirmed his nation’s desire to keep Greece in the eurozone, despite fresh speculation that the debt-laden Greek government could leave the shared currency within the next six months.
Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, is in “great danger” of falling into recession, warned the country’s leading economic think-tanks.
A group of leading German economic institutes has revised their heir expectations for economic growth in Germany in the current year as well as in 2013, saying they expected less growth than they had originally anticipated.
Germany’s Roman Catholic population must pay a special ‘religion tax’ of around 8-9 percent of their annual income tax bill or risk being excommunicated from the church, reported Deutsche Welle on Wednesday, after a German court sided with the nation’s bishops in a bitter defeat for grass-roots Catholics and conservative church campaigners.
