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by IANS |
Berlin, May 21 (IANS) The budget committee of German Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) has adopted the country's annual budget for 2022, allowing total spending of 496 billion euros ($523.5 billion) and about 140 billion euros in new debt.
The German Bundestag on Friday adopted the country's annual budget for 2022, Xinhua news agency reported.
The new debt includes a supplementary budget of around 40 billion euros that was submitted at the end of April for "measures directly related to the consequences" of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF).
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced earlier this year the creation of a special defence fund worth 100 billion euros, stressing that the country would strive to make its annual defence spending reach 2 per cent of the GDP.
Due to measures related to the Covid-19 pandemic, Europe's largest economy had already planned to take on new debt of nearly 100 billion euros before the start of the Ukraine crisis.
To do so, the country's so-called debt brake, which stipulates that the federal and state budgets must generally be balanced without revenues from borrowing, was temporarily suspended.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner strongly supports the restoration of compliance with the debt brake.
"You have to find the exit from crisis mode," he said last week. (1 euro = $1.06)
