Berlin’s focus has shifted. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s “tank battle” and the insufficient German military support for Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invaders are no longer the major issues. Germany’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius, is now the country’s most-liked politician. And Germany
approved a new €2.7 billion worth of arms for Kyiv—the largest amount so far—and Scholz and Zelensky now are in close touch.
The bad news is that Germany has slipped into recession. The estimate for the first quarter of 2023 showed the German economy contracting by 0.3 percent. That followed a contraction of 0.5 percent in the final quarter of 2022. The latest figures for the eurozone as a whole show the currency bloc marginally growing by only 0.3 percent in the second quarter of 2023 after no growth the first quarter. This is very bad news.
Leave a Reply