Tax cuts and a reduction in bureaucracy on the one hand, public spending and wealth taxes on the other. Faced with the crisis afflicting the German model, the programs of the country’s two main political forces – the Christian Democrats of the CDU-CSU and the Social Democrats of the SPD – seem to be mirror images of each other, opposing solutions that fit perfectly into their respective ideological bases. The difficulties facing the German economy, which are at the top of voters’ concerns, are, however, largely overlooked in the documents published on Tuesday, December 17, in the run-up to parliamentary elections on February 23, 2025.
Weakened by soaring energy prices following the war in Ukraine, by its overly export-centric model in a world shaken by Chinese competition and the prospect of forthcoming tariff hikes, by insufficient public investment and by the aging demographic threatening its social contract, Germany is on the verge of completing its second year in recession. Economists agree on the diagnosis, speaking almost unanimously of a paradigm shift for the country, after 15 years of virtually uninterrupted growth.
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