Germany updates: Companies pledge €631 billion investment – DW – 07/21/2025
An alliance of top German companies pledged to invest at least €631 billion ($733 billion) in Germany over the next three years.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz met with executives from top German firms on Monday, hoping to rally fresh investment after two years of recession.
While the government has approved billions in tax relief and a €500-billion ($580 billion) fund for infrastructure and climate, Berlin says public money alone won't be enough.An alliance of German companies, numbering in the dozens, pledged to invest at least €631 billion ($733 billion) in Germany over the next three years.
"The investments by the initiative are a very powerful signal that we are now experiencing a shift in sentiment and consolidating it," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.
"The message ... is very clear: Germany is back. It's worth investing in Germany again. We are not a location of the past, but a location of the present and above all the future," he added.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that large public investments could be boosted significantly private funding.
'We want to leverage this potential and thus trigger further growth effects," Merz said after meeting with representatives of the "Made for Germany" initiative at the Chancellery in Berlin.
The new government has launched a program to spur on investment and establish a €500 billion fund to splash on German infrastructure over the next 12 years. It has also pledged to cut bureaucratic red tape and speed up digitization.
The initiative is being led by executives from Germany's blue-chip companies, including lender Deutsche Bank and industrial group Siemens.
A summer interview with Alice Weidel, the leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), was severely disrupted by protesters on Sunday.
Members of her party have called for a repeat. Watch what happened here:
There has been a continued decline in the number of people employed in Germany's metal and electrical industry, according to the employers' association Gesamtmetall.
The association said that since the beginning of 2025, there had been around 60,000 job losses.
Basing its findings on a survey of companies, the association said that the number of employees in May was 2.5% lower than compared to the same period the year before.
While Germany's new government has taken some measures to relieve the situation, Gesamtmetall's managing director Oliver Zander higlighted a reduction in the electricity tax and the immediate investment program as outstanding issues.
"The speed at which the decline in employment in the metal and electrical industry continues shows, however, that the federal government has no time for breathers," Zander said.
The next heat wave has been forecast in Germany. How is a country known for its lack of air conditioning preparing?
Read the full story about Germany's preparations for heat waves.
Researchers say a far-right social media campaign — that painted a respected law professor as extremist — caused the suspension of the election of judges to Germany's highest court.
Read the full story on the controversial failure to elect a judge to Germany's top court.
Once famed for never being late, German trains almost never run on time anymore.
Deutsche Bahn has launched a refurbishment program that is likely to last at least a decade, and the costs and criticism are increasing.
Read the full story on increasing delays on Germany's rail network.
Germany's bond market calmed slightly on Monday after weeks of rising long-term interest rates. Investors are now waiting for new economic data from the Eurozone and a key decision from the European Central Bank (ECB).
A bond yield is the return investors get for lending money to the government by buying its bonds. When bond prices go up, yields go down — so falling yields often reflect expectations of slower growth or lower interest rates.
Economists believe the ECB will keep interest rates steady for now, but might cut them again as early as September.
Some analysts think this week's Eurozone business activity data could show little change, partly due to global trade worries and a strong euro. That could make German government bonds more attractive, pushing their prices up and yields down.
Senior representatives from around 50 countries are reconvening for another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
The virtual session is set to begin with opening statements from German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, UK Defense Secretary John Healey, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group was first launched on April 26, 2022, at the US air base in Ramstein, Germany — leading to the term "Ramstein format."
US President Donald Trump's turnaround on military aid for Ukaine is likely to be the main topic of discussion, as NATO allies work to facilitate the weapons delivery.
Survivors of abuse within the Catholic Church are urging the Vatican to take action against Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, following years of controversy and a newly closed investigation.
The plaintiffs accuse Woelki of shielding perpetrators and retraumatizing victims through his handling of abuse cases in the archdiocese.
The complaint, submitted by all 12 members of the survivors' advisory board at the German Bishops' Conference, was drafted by physician and board member Katharina Siepmann.
"The affected often experience the cardinal's behavior as offensive," said Siepmann, who suffered three years of severe abuse as a child and has served on the board since early this year.
The body was established in 2022 to represent victims and advise the Church.
The group's formal complaint against Woelki refers to alleged breaches of church law, not state law. "We ultimately hope that officials in Rome — and the pope himself — will view the cardinal's behavior as unacceptable and intervene," Siepmann told German broadcaster WDR.
In May, Cologne prosecutors announced that Woelki would not face perjury charges in connection with his sworn statements about when he learned of abuse allegations in his archdiocese. The archbishop had been under investigation for more than two years.
Woelki, who remains a cardinal and Archbishop of Cologne, took part in the conclave that chose Pope Leo XIV.
The small town of Bohmte near the city of Osnabrück in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony was the scene of a spectacular accident that left two people seriously injured, including a seven-year-old boy.
For as yet unknown reasons, local police reported, a car appears to have come off the road at high speed before colliding with a parked vehicle and crashing through a hedge.
It then landed on a trampoline, hitting and injuring the child who was playing on it, and bounced into the attic of a barn.
Read the full story about the car that crashed into a trampoline in northern Germany.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to meet top executives from major German firms on Monday in a bid to restore investor confidence and revive the struggling economy.
Representatives from around 30 companies — including Siemens and Deutsche Bank — are expected to attend the talks in Berlin, according to sources cited by DPA. More than a dozen firms listed on the DAX, Germany's main stock index, are among those invited.
The meeting will focus on the "Made for Germany" initiative, launched by Siemens and Deutsche Bank, which aims to strengthen the country's investment climate. Participating firms are expected to outline upcoming projects and signal readiness to commit fresh capital.
After two years of recession and amid a bleak outlook for 2025, Merz is urging companies to ramp up domestic investment. His government, which took office in May, has approved multi-billion-euro tax relief packages to stimulate growth.
A government spokesperson last week pointed to the recently passed €500 billion (over $580 billion) infrastructure and climate fund, saying public investment will lead the way — but private sector participation is essential.
Once Europe's growth engine, the German economy has been hit hard by inflation, energy price shocks, and mounting global competition in the wake of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
from the DW newsroom, overlooking the Rhine River in Bonn — the former capital of West Germany.
You join us as Chancellor Friedrich Merz gets ready to woo some of Germany's biggest business bosses to help get the sluggish economy back on its feet.
Top names like Siemens and Deutsche Bank are expected talks in Berlin, along with more than a dozen other DAX-listed giants.
About 30 firms are set to join what's being billed as a major push to rebuild investor confidence in the country's economic future.
Merz is under pressure after two back-to-back years of recession and little sign that 2025 will turn things around.
Follow along for the latest on what Germany is talking about on Monday, July 21.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
2 hours ago
- DW
What next for US, China after talks end with no trade deal? – DW – 07/30/2025
Although no trade agreement has been reached, the US and China did agree to continue working towards extending the 90-day tariff truce, which is due to expire on August 12. Will the two rival superpowers strike a deal? The latest round of trade talks between the United States and China in Stockholm ended on July 29, with no deal in place. The 90-day truce announced in May after talks in Geneva paused an escalating trade war between the world's two largest economies, who had threatened to impose tariffs of over 100% on each other. After the Geneva meetings, US tariffs on Chinese goods were reduced from 145% to 30%, while China's retaliatory tariffs dropped from 125% to 10%. While the two rival powers have signaled that they are open to extending the negotiations beyond the August 12 deadline and avoid tariffs surging to pre-Geneva levels, key differences remain unresolved after the talks in the Swedish capital. This latest round of negotiations "showed no material difference from the previous two" and still reflected "a case of waiting things out in hopes of a shift," Claus Soong, an analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin, told DW. Whether the pause will be extended now depends on US President Donald Trump, who is expected to decide after a full briefing. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who led the US delegation in Stockholm, called the meetings "constructive," but he stressed that "nothing is agreed until we speak with President Trump." US officials warned that failure to reach a deal could see tariffs on Chinese goods surge back to triple-digit levels. China confirmed efforts to prolong the 90-day pause on most reciprocal tariffs. The US-China trade dispute as well as the US leader's trade policies with most of his country's partners has caused global uncertainty and impacted economic growth. And while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the recent easing of some tariffs has helped raise its global growth forecast to 3%, it warned that higher tariffs would create more uncertainty that could lead to slower economic activity. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Dr. Patricia M. Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's John L. Thornton China Center, told DW that recent weeks have seen both sides look to moderate their rhetoric, "signaling a mutual interest in creating the conditions for a leader-level meeting." While no agreement was announced, both sides seem to have "achieved their immediate objective from this meeting — to extend the trade truce, buying time to work toward a broader deal that Presidents Trump and Xi [Jinping] could endorse when they meet later this year," she added. There have been reports that the two leaders could meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea being held from October 30 to November 1. Trump this week denied that he was "seeking a summit," although did not rule out traveling to China to meet with Xi Jinping. The US delegation went into the talks in Stockholm just days after Trump secured a deal with the EU, which many in the bloc say favors the US. The US has also recently signed deals with Japan, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, giving the trade delegation in Stockholm a boost as it renewed talks with China. But after a string of wins, Washington is finding out that striking a favorable deal with China might not be so easy. A core element of the standoff revolves around China's dominance over rare earth materials and US restrictions on AI chip exports. At trade talks in London in June, export controls were formally included in trade discussions, an unprecedented move that blurred the lines between trade and national security. After London, both countries signaled a potential easing of restrictions on rare earth and semiconductor exports. According to MERICS expert Soong, China has the upper hand in this area, as the "chip card" is less effective than rare earths. "China can leverage its control over the global market for rare earth materials and magnets," he said, which are crucial for the world's car, semiconductor and aerospace industries. "Rare earth control is the real pain point," Soong added. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In February Trump imposed a 20% tariff, claiming China had failed to curb fentanyl precursor exports. While most of the Geneva-era tariffs were later scaled down, the 20% fentanyl-related tariffs remain in place. In what was widely seen as a gesture of goodwill and a bid to de-escalate trade tensions, in late June Beijing added two fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances. While that move raised hopes that the related duties might be lifted, Soong cautioned that "the fentanyl-related tariffs appear to serve primarily as a pretext." "Given that their removal would lower the overall tariff rate to just 10% — potentially below the levels applied to Japan and the EU — such a move seems improbable," he said. Soong added that even if the 20% fentanyl tariff is scrapped, "equivalent measures would likely be reintroduced under a different justification." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In an interview with Fox Business ahead of the Stockholm talks, Bessent pointed out that China accounts for 30% of global manufacturing exports. "It should not get any larger," Bessent said, adding that China's "is an unsustainable, historically the most imbalanced economy, thus a shift towards a domestic consumption-centered economy is necessary." Dr. Kim said that given Beijing's own recognition of those economic imbalances, US concerns about Chinese overcapacity or the need for consumer-driven growth may be manageable. She highlighted how some of their interests are aligned — namely Chinese purchases of non-strategic US goods, Chinese investment in non-sensitive US sectors, and cooperation on fentanyl. But when the negotiations go beyond trade and enter "the strategic realm, they will get more challenging," Kim said. "It's hard to imagine Beijing agreeing to side with the US against its strategic partners," she said, referring to the Trump administration pressing China on their purchases of Russian and Iranian oil. China, Dr Kim explained, will "certainly have demands" of their own, including pushing the Trump administration to adopt their preferred language and stance on Taiwan, and to commit to exempt export restrictions on high-tech goods. "Such issues that cut against the core strategic interests of both sides will prove more difficult to resolve," Kim said.
DW
2 hours ago
- DW
Should India worry about China's massive dam? – DW – 07/30/2025
China's construction of a massive dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo has raised fears in India over water flows, agriculture and regional security. China began building a massive dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo river near the disputed border with the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh — which Beijing also claims — earlier this month at a ceremony attended by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. It has sparked alarm in India given both the environmental risks and the potential leverage it offers China over water flow into northeast India and Bangladesh. The estimated $170 billion (€147.4 billion) hydropower project aims to generate 300 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually, supplying power primarily for transmission to other parts of China and meeting local demand in Tibet. It surpasses the giant Three Gorges Dam's capacity, currently the largest in the world. Some experts and former diplomats believe the dam is likely to renew tensions between India and China, despite recent signs of a cautious improvement in ties, such as addressing border concerns. The two nations have accused each other of trying to seize territory along their de facto border, known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which India claims is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long and China says is shorter. After years of tension, both countries have renewed efforts to normalize relations. In January, both sides agreed to resume flights after nearly five years. Three months later, India and China's special representatives decided to move forward by resuming pilgrimages and border trade. However, the dam project introduces a major new fault line, as the ecological changes to the landscape are expected to trigger a range of geopolitical and environmental issues related to habitats and demography across the lower Himalayas. India considers the Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) — a bilateral data-sharing framework — inadequate given the scale of dam project, as the ELM mainly provides information during the monsoon season, when flooding is a major risk. "In the long run, as India argues, it will not only trap nutrient-rich sediments vital for downstream soil fertility in Assam and Bangladesh, thereby affecting irrigation," Aravind Yelery, associate professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, told DW. The dam will "also impact crop yields and agricultural productivity, and compromise riverine ecosystems," Yelery added. In Yelery's estimate, the transboundary rivers and China's approach to unilaterally altering the riverine ecosystem is disastrous environmentally and diplomatically. "From a legal aspect, China is taking a felonious route to neglect its responsibility for preserving river flows due to geopolitical ambitions," said Yelery, adding that this has already had a profound impact on India's strategic approach to engaging in border talks. China took a similar stance on the Mekong River, asserting upstream control while constructing several dams. Since the mid-1980s, China has built 11 large dams on the Mekong (Lancang), with more underway. "China has not entered into riparian agreement with any of its neighbours even though it controls the headworks of most major rivers in Asia," Atul Kumar, a China expert and fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, told DW. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video "Beijing has adopted a similar stance in the Yarlung Tsangpo case and kept India and Bangladesh uninformed on these dam projects. Even the hydrological data sharing, a harmless technical detail, often depends on bilateral relationship and has often remained unavailable during tense periods," said Kumar. A statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun that the project "will not have any negative impact on the downstream regions" during a media briefing last week has been met with skepticism. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu described the Chinese mega dam project as a ticking "water bomb" and an existential threat that is a far bigger issue than the military threat. "The issue is that China cannot be trusted. No one knows what they might do," Khandu told news agency PTI, stressing that China is not a signatory to the international water treaty that could have forced it to abide by global norms. Kumar also raised concerns over the dam's risk of failure, which "would always remain a ticking bomb for downstream areas in northeast India and Bangladesh." "In an unstable and earthquake-prone Himalayas, a natural disaster, conflict or even sabotage can bring destruction all over the downstream areas," said Kumar. Former diplomat Anil Wadhwa called for a consultative mechanism and said China should disclose details about the dam's capacity, water flows and alignments, once construction has been completed. "It is imperative that India takes all defensive measures in Arunachal Pradesh by constructing its own dam at the earliest," Wadhwa told DW. "The local opposition should be compensated and open communication with the affected community will help lest the issue spiral as we have seen with other mega projects in the country." That sentiment was echoed by former diplomat Ajay Bisaria, who told DW, "Given China's recent history of leveraging economic interdependence and trade as a geopolitical tool, India should assume China will weaponize the waters." "While China's willingness to do so is evident, its capacity and the technical feasibility are yet to be seen. To mitigate that risk, India must proactively assess and game the worst-case scenario," Bisaria concluded. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Local Germany
4 hours ago
- Local Germany
Germany's economic slump not yet over as economy shrinks unexpectedly
Gross domestic product (GDP) in Europe's top economy was down 0.1 percent from the previous quarter, according to preliminary data from federal statistics agency Destatis. Analysts surveyed by financial data firm FactSet had expected zero growth between April and June. The economy's performance was hit by lower investments in several areas, including construction, although household and government consumption provided some support, the data showed. Also on Wednesday, official data showed Italy's economy contracted by 0.1 percent in the second quarter, with exports acting as a drag on the overall performance. France's economic growth however picked up in the April to June period, expanding by 0.3 percent. Growth data for the whole eurozone is due to be released later Wednesday. Destatis also downgraded the result for the German economy's first quarter to 0.3 percent growth, from 0.4 previously. READ ALSO: Germans reluctant to spend despite easing inflation First quarter growth had been been surprisingly strong as US companies rushed to import products before tariffs came into effect, but that front-loading effect lost steam in the second quarter. "After some good figures, it's now back to disappointment for the German economy," said LBBW bank analyst Jens-Oliver Niklasch. "The impression remains that the German economy is treading water. Added to this is the rather unsatisfactory situation with high US tariffs. We will need to make some efforts in Germany to get back on a stable growth path." Advertisement The German economy shrank in both 2023 and 2024 due to a manufacturing slump and weak demand for its key exports, and US President Donald Trump's tariffs are threatening to push it into a third straight year of contraction. Recent indicators, including business and investor confidence surveys, had suggested that the downturn may have bottomed out and some economic institutes expect the economy to return to slight growth this year. READ ALSO: German Chancellor Merz welcomes EU trade deal with US
