Mini-growth despite billions in debt: FDP General Secretary Nicole Büttner sees the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office as proof in black and white of how serious the situation is: “This shows: Black and Red are just burning money and are therefore wantonly putting our future viability at risk.”
The Chancellor’s reaction to this development is particularly worrying. Büttner believes that his “organized lack of concepts” rightly drives people “crazy”. In their view, instead of clear reforms, slogans of perseverance and redistribution debates dominated: “The government’s pathetic response to this is that the Chancellor asks for patience every day and that there are intensive discussions about tax increases and ever new social democratic redistribution ideas.”
Given the scale of new debt, 0.2 percent growth would be “homeopathic” at best. According to Büttner, the additional 9 billion euros in economic output will be offset by around 800 billion euros in new debt in 2025. Their conclusion is clear: “This shows: Black and Red only burns money and thus willfully jeopardizes our future viability.”
The federal government promised that the debt package would trigger an economic revival. As the current figures show, there is nothing left of it. The reason is obvious: “Without structural reforms, virtually every euro of tax money goes to waste.”
FDP federal chairman Christian Dürr also makes it clear: “We cannot get out of this crisis without radical reforms.” The FDP leader calls for the planned borrowing to be fundamentally reconsidered. Not all loans have been taken out yet, a change of course is still possible: “If I were to give the government some advice, it would be this: forego the debt and focus on reforms instead.” Because the debt pact acts like a reform blocker. More money does not lead to more courage, but rather to more comfort: “We see with this federal government: full coffers make people lazy. First incurring debt and then promising reforms leads to a dead end.”