A German economist, Veronika Grimm, has warned the CDU leader, Friedrich Merz and the Union against hastily introducing new special funds in an emergency manner. Grimm stated in an interview with the Bild that “the coalition has now shown for three and a half years that subsidies based on debt do not work, that the state is bad at using the money correctly.”
Recent proposals by four economists for new special funds of up to 900 billion euros for the Bundeswehr and infrastructure sound “more like a satire than a serious proposal.” Grimm can only hope that the Union will not adopt such a plan. If that were to happen, “we would be squandering our ammunition before we even have a strategy for how we can become more resilient and at the same time boost growth.”
Grimm urged Merz and the Union to focus on a new growth strategy instead of new debt: “We are constantly only talking about additional debt, much too little about a strategy for how we can actually generate growth from these investments.” She has been demanding for over a year a European cooperation in the development of an “own armaments production, particularly in the high-tech sector.” Grimm is usually accused of “warmongering” by those actors who “are now rejoicing” over the debt plans.