The deteriorating economic situation in Germany is causing serious concern among its citizens and is gradually becoming a key issue influencing voters' choices, Report informs referring to Politico.
"While Germans have been preoccupied in recent years with migration and the war in Ukraine, their economy has quietly been imploding. The economic malaise is stoking fears that the country could see a further swerve to the political extremes. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, hampered by constitutional spending limits that make it all but impossible for the government to undertake ambitious economic stimulus, has been beset by infighting and appears to have run out of ideas over what to do.
While the economy’s struggles have been in the back of Germans’ minds for some time, they have suddenly moved to the fore following a spate of dour economic news involving Germany-based plants for blue-chip companies including Volkswagen and Intel. Asked to rank the country’s “most important problems,” Germans put the economy second behind migration in a recent public television survey.
That’s bad news for Scholz and his embattled three-party coalition. Even before the recent economic troubles, he had already earned the lowest approval ratings ever recorded for a German leader. Only 18 percent of Germans are satisfied with Scholz’s job performance. By comparison, the lowest level ever recorded for Angela Merkel during her 16 years in office was 40 percent. Gerhard Schröder, her predecessor, hit bottom at 24 percent.
For Scholz, more humiliation looms this Sunday in the form of another potential far-right win in an eastern regional election, this time in his home state of Brandenburg. Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has ruled in Brandenburg since Germany’s reunification. But polls show the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party leading there. If the far right wins again in the East, as it did in Thuringia earlier this month, it would amount to another repudiation of Scholz’s leadership, heightening speculation that his weakened coalition won’t last until the next federal election scheduled a year from now.
With an industrial base rooted in 19th-century technologies such as chemicals and machinery and a massive digital deficit, Germany is increasingly finding it difficult to compete. Once home to some of the premier global companies, from BMW to Adidas, the country is increasingly an also-ran. Of the 100 most valuable companies in the world, for example, just one — software developer SAP — is German.
In addition to the deep-rooted challenges facing Germany, such as its rapidly aging society and the low productivity of its workforce, the country has also been hit hard by cyclical developments, including the slowdown in China and a drop in domestic consumer spending.