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A proposed investment fund will provide major impetus to Germany’s ailing economy, Economy Minister Robert Habeck predicted in Berlin on Wednesday.
“If business would then invest more, that would unleash the big booster for the national economy,” Habeck, who also serves as vice chancellor, said.
Under Habeck’s proposals, companies are to receive 10% of all their investments, either through tax deductions or through reimbursement in the event of a low tax burden.
The new fund is to be financed through new debt, although Habeck did not use the word. “It has to be financed in advance. I do not see any other realistic political option,” he said.
Habeck said he believed that the idea of the fund would comply with Germany’s debt brake, the constitutional restriction on incurring new debt, because it was limited in scope and did not imply lifting the debt brake.
Habeck declined to be drawn on the size of the proposed fund. “I have purposely not calculated a volume,” he said. But he noted calculations by the Federation of German Industries (BDI) that provided for a figure of hundreds of billions of euros.
“So, we are talking here about a large volume, but that would be expended over many years,” he said. The aim was a renewal of Germany as a production site, Habeck said.
“The first question, I believe, is not, should it be 200, 300 or 400 billion, but do we want to get going?” he said.
