Faced with new data indicating the misuse of the special fund, Johannes Winkel, chair of the Young Union (JU), has urged the Bundestag to tighten oversight of Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD).

In an interview with “Bild”, Winkel said that the German people were promised investment in rails and roads. “What actually happens with the €500 billion is a bad joke” he added. He demands that Klingbeil urgently explain how the money is being spent and that Parliament enforce stricter control over the finance minister.

Winkel also drew a grim comparison, saying that Germany’s current trajectory “recalls, with fatal similarity, the mistakes France made in the 2010s, when it borrowed vast sums without sense or reason”. He noted that France has now become a country defined by total state debt.