Germany updates: Merz addresses lawmakers before NATO summit – DW – 06/24/2025
Ahead of NATO summit, German Chancellor Merz is due address parliament on Germany's role in Israel-Iran war and Ukraine. Watch and follow live with DW German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is due to deliver a government statement in the Bundestag at noon (1000 GMT) on Tuesday regarding the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as NATO's 5% target.
The address is scheduled to last 25 minutes, followed by a 90-minute debate.
Germany's Cabinet approved on Tuesday the draft budget for 2025 and a framework for the following yearr, providing for record investments to boost growth.
After the Cabinet meeting, the 2025 budget is set to be introduced in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament. The final approval is due this September.
The plans for 2026 are due to be agreed in full by the Cabinet in late July before a vote in the Bundestag by the end of the year.
Senior citizens and families are shoplifting more frequently as the value of items shoplifted in Germany continues to rise, according to a study by the the Cologne-based retail research institute EHI published on Tuesday.
In 2024, customers stole goods to the tune of approximately €2.95 billion ($3.4 billion), a 4.6% hike when compared to 2023.
The total loss has risen for the third time in a row and reached an all-time high.
"There are more and more people who can no longer afford or want to buy certain products, partly as a protest against the prices," said study author Frank Horst.
"Senior citizens and families are also shoplifting more and more frequently."
Experts say the increase of self-service checkouts in Germany is correlated with the rise in shoplifting. More and more retailers, from supermarket giant Aldi to healthcare and cosmetics store chain dm, are adopting self-service checkout machines.
EHI surveyed 98 companies with a total of 17,433 shops regarding their inventory discrepancies to get their findings.
Around 3,900 ultra-wealthy people in Germany now own more than a quarter of the country's financial wealth, according to a new report from management consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The people with financial assets valued at more than $100 million (€86.17 million), now collectively have a total worth of just under $3 trillion.
BCG estimates Germany's total gross wealth in 2024 at $22.9 trillion. Of this, $11.8 trillion is invested in real estate and other tangible assets, while $11.1 trillion consists of purely financial assets such as bank deposits, securities, pensions and cash. The ultra-wealthy own 27% of those financial assets. However, this is balanced against liabilities of $2.2 trillion, most of them loans.
Germany now ranks third worldwide in the number of ultra-wealthy individuals, behind the United States, with 33,000 super-rich, and China, with 9,200, the BCG found.
The management consultancy is headquartered in the US with offices in more than 50 countries.
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil's draft budget has several record figures, including in terms of defense spending and government borrowing.
The defense budget is set to more than double by 2029, rising to €152.8 billion (roughly $177 billion).
This means defense spending is due to rise to 3.5%, amid Germany's growing security fears since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine as well as US President Donald Trump's growing pressure on Europe to up its defense spending.
Net borrowing will also significantly increase, as per the draft budget. It is due to jump to €81.8 billion in 2025, up from €33.3 billion last year. It will continue to rise in the next four years; to €89.3 billion in 2026, €87.5 billion in 2027, €115.7 billion in 2028 and €126.1 billion in 2029.
Those massive hikes are made possible by a law passed in March, easing Germany's so-called debt brake.
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Germany has been operating with a provisional budget since the start of the year.
Germany will boost defense spending to 3.5% of gross domestic product by 2029, Reuters said on Monday, aiming to send a strong signal with its 2025 budget ahead of this week's NATO summit in The Hague.
Germany's total defense spending will go up from €95 billion in the draft budget for 2025 to €162 billion in the budget framework for 2029, according to Reuters.
Germany will be able to borrow a total €378.1 billion for defense between 2025 and 2029 thanks to debt brake reform from March (see below).
Germany's upper house of parliament in March passed a reform of the country's borrowing rules and a €500 billion ($542 billion) fund to revamp its infrastructure and revive Europe's largest economy.
The constitutional amendment to loosen the so-called debt brake allows for de-facto unlimited spending on defense and security.
Germany's draft budget includes net new debt of €82 billion, which will rise progressively to just over €126 billion in 2029, according to Bloomberg News.
Before the March change, the German parliament suspended the debt brake in times like the COVID-19 pandemic and during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is set to present the first draft of the 2025 budget.
The budget this year was delayed because of national elections in February, and comes after Germany's parliament voted this March in favor of a major fiscal package that includes changes to debt policies to enable greater spending on defense as well as €500 billion ($580 billion) infrastructure fund.
We'll bring you the latest news, including announcements from a press conference scheduled to take place at 10:45 a.m. (0845 GMT/UTC).
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