Germany: Government bet on big spending to spur growth – DW – 07/30/2025
The German government is expected to approve the 2026 draft budget later on Wednesday, which includes planned investments totaling €126.7 billion and borrowing of €174.3 billion.
It comes with a warning from Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil that significant austerity measures will likely be needed starting in 2027.A rescue mission is underway in northern Pakistan for German Olympic biathlon champion Laura Dahlmeier, who was seriously injured in a rockfall on Laila Peak in the Karakoram mountain range.
The 30-year-old was climbing at around 5,700 metres when falling rocks swept her away. Her climbing partner raised the alarm after being rescued.
Officials say helicopter access is impossible.
"The conditions at the altitude where she was injured are extremely challenging, and a team of foreign climbers will launch a ground rescue mission today," Areeb Ahmed Mukhtar, a senior local official in Ghanche district, said.
Dahlmeier, a seasoned mountaineer, made history at the 2018 Winter Olympics, winning both the sprint and pursuit events.
German news channel Welt TV is launching a weekly program entirely produced and hosted by artificial intelligence.
Titled KI-Welt, the show covers topics like AI, robotics, and future tech, with all editorial processes, from research to presentation, handled by AI with human supervision.
Jan Philipp Burgard, Welt TV's editor-in-chief, said the experimental show is to show what is already possible with AI.
"We won't be able to stop the AI revolution, so we should embrace it and help shape it," he said.
A computer-generated avatar anchors the show. The first episode will air on Thursday.
Profits at German carmaker Mercedes-Benz have fallen by 55.8% in the first half of the year, the company says.
The Stuttgart-based carmaker said post-tax earnings plummeted from €6.1 billion to around €2.7 billion in the first half of the year.
The business cited tariffs, lower sales volumes, and costs linked to efficiency measures as reasons for the decline.
Looking ahead, Mercedes now expects full-year group revenue to fall significantly below last year's level.
The German government is expected to approve the 2026 draft budget on Wednesday, which outlines spending of €520.5 billion ($600.3 billion) and new borrowing totaling about €174 billion.
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil's budget includes €126.7 billion in investments earmarked for modernizing the country.
The government, in office since May, has pledged to increase spending to upgrade infrastructure and strengthen the military.
Officials also hope the budget will help improve the economic climate, which is projected to recover noticeably in 2025 and 2026 after two years of stagnation.
Klingbeil, however, warned this week that significant austerity measures will likely be needed starting in 2027, when a funding gap of approximately €172 billion is expected.
Guten Morgen from the Bonn newsroom, still staffed by humans.
That's no longer the case over at Welt TV, where a new weekly program will soon be produced and presented entirely by artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, the German government is tackling the 2026 draft budget the old-fashioned way, without AI assistance, at least as far as we know. In a notable shift from its long-standing tradition of fiscal restraint, Germany is now spending big: aiming to jumpstart the economy, modernize its aging infrastructure, and boost military investment.
We'll be keeping an eye on those stories, and more, right here in this blog.
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