Germany To Take On Debt Again In 2021 For Virus Fightback

Germany plans to take on 96.2 billion euros ($114 billion) in new debt in 2021, shattering its cherished no-deficit rule for a second year running to combat the pandemic's economic fallout, finance ministry sources said Friday

Berlin, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Sep, 2020 ) :Germany plans to take on 96.2 billion Euros ($114 billion) in new debt in 2021, shattering its cherished no-deficit rule for a second year running to combat the pandemic's economic fallout, finance ministry sources said Friday.

The figure will be formally announced on Wednesday when Finance Minister Olaf Scholz presents next year's Federal budget.

Berlin already intends to borrow around 218 billion euros this year to help pay for massive stimulus and rescue measures aimed at steering Europe's top economy through the Covid-19 crisis.

A finance ministry source told news agency DPA: "Doing nothing would be much more expensive.

" The unprecedented spending has forced Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to abandon its years-long habit of running a "black zero" balanced budget, and suspend a constitutionally enshrined "debt brake".

Introduced at the height of the financial crisis in 2009, the "debt brake" bans Berlin from taking on more than 0.35 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in new debt in any one year.

Scholz's 2020 budget will see total government debt as a percentage of GDP climb to 75.25 percent, compared with just under 60 percent in 2019.

Germany expects to reinstate the "debt brake" and its usual fiscal rigour in 2022, the ministry sources said.