Overview
- IW calculates that about 86% and the Ifo Institute about 95% of the €24.3 billion borrowed in 2025 did not finance additional infrastructure but substituted existing budget items.
- The Finance Ministry rejects the studies’ approach as using the wrong baseline, citing roughly €87 billion in total 2025 investments of which around €24 billion came from the special fund.
- Germany’s Federal Audit Office had already warned in February that debt-financed money was not flowing solely into additional investments.
- Political fallout is intensifying as opposition parties press for clarification and oversight, the Greens consider a constitutional challenge, and JU chief Johannes Winkel accuses the government of backfilling welfare costs with the fund.
- Long-term costs frame the dispute, with federal interest payments reported at €34 billion in 2025, projections up to €66.5 billion by 2029, repayments on the fund starting in 2044, and CDU/SPD pledging a debt-brake reform debate this year.