Germany's finance minister warned on Monday that rising wages could further fan inflation, adding that parties involved in collective bargaining had a responsibility to help prevent that from happening and that one-off payments might be needed, Reuters reported. German inflation hit an annual 7.8% in April, the highest in more than four decades, which is expected to fuel wage demands. Wage agreements for some 10 million workers are up for re-negotiation in Germany this year, according to the German federation of trade unions.

Former German tennis star Boris Becker could be deported from Britain in the wake of his conviction for violating the Insolvency Act, UPI.com reported. Becker was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for hiding millions of pounds worth of assets during a bankruptcy. He could be deported because British law allows for any foreign national convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence to be considered for deportation. Becker was charged with hiding more than $3 million in assets after filing for bankruptcy in 2017.

Lufthansa and its partner MSC have been looking at financial data opened up by state-owned ITA Airways to see if the Italian airline would make a good strategic acquisition, the German carrier's chief executive said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Prospective bidders for ITA Airways have had access to its finance data room for about 72 hours, Chief Executive Carsten Spohr told a news conference. The Italian government wants to clinch an ITA privatisation deal by mid-June, sources told Reuters in March.

EU antitrust rules should be beefed up to allow regulators to break up companies for serious breaches, German State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Wednesday, urging EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager to consider this when reforming regulations, Reuters reported. Rules known as Regulation 1/2003, in force since 2004, have allowed Vestager to go after Alphabet unit Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Intel, and impose billions of euros in fines.

The sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine will not be lifted until Moscow reaches a peace agreement with Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, adding that it was for Ukraine to determine the peace terms, Reuters reported. Scholz, in an interview broadcast Monday on ZDF public television, said Russian President Vladimir Putin had miscalculated if he had anticipated he might be able to gain territory from Ukraine, declare an end to hostilities, and see Western countries drop sanctions. "He didn't think his entire Ukraine operation through," Scholz said.

Germany has started preparations for a potential halt in Russian gas deliveries as concerns intensify amid a dispute over payment terms, Bloomberg News reported. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that preparations to limit Germany’s exposure to Russian energy imports were under way even before President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. While Russian coal is already being phased out, gas is more difficult, he said in Tokyo after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

German inflation hit its highest level in more than four decades in April, pushed higher by natural gas and mineral oil products that have significantly increased in price since Russia's attack on Ukraine, Reuters reported. Consumer prices, harmonised to make them comparable with inflation data from other European Union countries (HICP), rose an annual 7.8%, a rise from March's 7.6%, the Federal Statistics Office said on Thursday. The inflation reading from Germany, the biggest euro zone economy, precedes data on Friday for the whole 19-country bloc.

Germany is preparing for a change of control at the PCK refinery in Schwedt operated by Russian state-owned Rosneft (ROSN.MM) that accounts for all of Germany's remaining Russian oil imports, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Germany has set out plans to become independent of Russian oil, which would make a European Union oil embargo manageable for Europe's biggest economy. It has reduced the proportion of oil it sources from Russia to 12% from 35%, leaving PCK the only remaining consumer of Russian oil in the country.

German business confidence has picked up slightly this month after plunging in March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a survey showed Monday, the Associated Press reported. The Ifo institute said its monthly confidence index, a closely watched indicator for Europe’s biggest economy, rose to 91.8 points in April from 90.8 in March — stabilizing after a nearly eight-point fall last month. Business managers’ outlook for the next six months improved, but their assessment of the current situation was only marginally better than in March.

The German government is set to hike its inflation forecast for this year to 6.1% due to the impact of the war in Ukraine, up from 3.3% it had forecast in January, according to government document seen by Reuters on Monday. Berlin, which is due to present its spring economic forecasts on Wednesday, sees consumer price growth easing to 2.8% in 2023, the document showed.