BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff has floated the idea of Germany suspending rules to prevent the government running up new debt for several years as Europe's biggest economy digests the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an article for Tuesday's edition of the Handelsblatt business daily, Helge Braun advocated stabilizing employees' social welfare contributions until the end of 2023 and doing without tax increases.
He wrote that such a “strategic decision for the economic recovery” would have significant consequences for the budget — "in concrete terms, the ‘debt brake’ can't be kept to in the coming years even with otherwise strong spending discipline.” The so-called “debt brake," which was introduced a decade ago,