Minister's warning: Germany's economy is in "troubled waters"

2024-02-22 07:50:39Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

Germany's economy is in "troubled waters", according to the German Minister of Economy.

Robert Habeck has said that the German government's forecast for economic growth for 2024 has fallen from 1.3% to 0.2%.

This means that Europe's largest economy has stalled, although it has avoided entering a full-blown recession.

Habeck previously called the situation with Germany's economy "dramatically bad", the BBC reported. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, he said that Germany has been hit by a "very specific situation", as a result of the complete occupation of Ukraine by Russia, as its energy-intensive industries depended on Russian gas.

Germany's reliance on exports made it particularly vulnerable to changes in global trade patterns, the German minister said, and that the broader structural problem for the German economy was a shortage of workers.

"Without migrant workers, Germany's economy would collapse," added Habeck.

The country may actually have slipped into recession, according to a warning from Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank.

In its monthly report, the Bundesbank said that economic output could "decline slightly again in the first quarter of 2024". Two negative quarters in a row would put Germany into a so-called technical recession.


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