Finance Minister Christian Lindner has rejected talk that Germany plans to resort to tax measures last used after World War II to consolidate the budget.
Speaking at the government’s open day in Berlin, the pro-market Free Democrat said suggestions of reviving a policy which forced property owners and others with substantial assets to pay a levy of 50% on their assets into a so-called equalization fund over 30 years, was “absolutely fake news.”
The fund provided financial compensation to Germans who suffered property damage or other serious hardship as a result of the war.
“Something like this is being spread from AfD circles,” Lindner said in response to a question from the audience, referring to Germany’s far-right political party, which has risen to second place in the polls. “I absolutely rule out a burden-equalization law.”
Germany can reach its pre-crisis level of public debt of about 60% of gross domestic product “in a few years” without such measures, he added, on the back of good budgetary management and policies to promote faster growth.
Lindner joked that that this would happen during his time in office, “although I have taken re-election into account.”
As a share of GDP Germany’s debt dropped to 66.4% last year from 69.3% in 2021, according to Bundesbank data.
The episode highlights the challenges facing a government coalition that’s losing public support, while the AfD, which considers the euro a failed currency and wants to dismantle the European Union in its current form, has become the second most popular party in Germany.
Two years before the next federal election, a survey by the German polling company INSA for the tabloid Bild found that 70% of voters are dissatisfied with the job Chancellor Olaf Scholz is doing, ten percentage points more than in the last survey four weeks ago.
Support for Scholz’s Social Democrats fell by two percentage points to 18%. This puts it three points behind the AfD, which remains unchanged at 21%. The Greens and Lindner’s FDP each gained one point, to 14% and 8%, respectively. The conservative bloc led by the Christian Democrats gained one point to 27%. INSA interviewed 1,203 people between Aug. 14 and 18.
What’s more, Germans’ trust in democracy and its institutions has suffered greatly in recent months, according to a study by the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation, reported in Sunday’s Tagesspiegel. Only 38% are satisfied or very satisfied with democracy, compared to 52% at the end of 2002. A slim majority of 53% said they’re optimistic about the future.
At a separate event during the government’s open day, Scholz said it’s important “that we all stand up together against those who despise democracy. It is a matter for all of us. We can only defend democracy if each of us understands that as our own business.”
