Euractiv reports on the remarks by Germany Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) at a trade fair in Leipzig on Feb. 14, saying the German economy was “dramatically bad.”
Last year, Germany posted the worst performance across all major global economies, with a GDP contraction of 0.3%, exacerbating concerns over the deteriorating health of Europe’s largest economy.
While politicians and business leaders had hoped 2024 would bring a more positive outlook, as the German government was until recently projecting a growth rate of 1.3% over the course of this year, Habeck’s remarks, hinting that government expectations about growth are set at 0.2%, in fact point to a much bleaker scenario.
The growth estimate revision by Europe’s industrial and exports engine casts a gloomy shadow on the European Commission’s own economic forecast for the wider bloc, due on Feb. 15, as the EU’s overall economy traditionally tends to track the German trajectory, due to the close trade links most European countries hold with the industrial powerhouse. What Habeck omitted, though, is that his own Green party is to blame for most of the economic slump in Germany—the Green Deal, and the sanctions against Russia, including the cancellation of the natural gas imports from there, are the driving factors of the downward dynamic.
