Germany’s debt interest payments could soar next year, finance minister warns – newspaper

BERLIN (Reuters) – Finance Minister Christian Lindner warned that curiosity costs on Germany’s public debt may attain 30 billion euros subsequent yr on account of rising rates of interest and rising debt ranges, including that he would resist calls to extend spendings.

Lindner stated he wished to convey an finish subsequent yr to the three years of presidency largesse that had characterised makes an attempt to prop up the financial system by means of the coronavirus disaster and reapply Germany’s constitutional debt brake subsequent yr.

“We’re experiencing harmful inflation that needs to be braked,” he advised the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in an interview. “Preparedness to take entrepreneurial dangers might be diminished. We won’t let this change into an financial disaster.”

Germany spent 4 billion euros on curiosity final yr, stated Lindner, from the business-friendly Free Democrat celebration, including that he would resist calls from his coalition companions for elevated spending.

“We won’t afford ill-directed subsidies any extra,” he stated. He listed subsidies for getting electrical and hybrid vehicles that have been obtainable even to very excessive earners as examples of subsidies that must be scrapped.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Modifying by Sandra Maler)