Germany will assume more than €600 million ($629 million) of debt that its development bank extended to Northvolt AB for the construction of a battery plant in the country, Bloomberg News reported. The federal government will this month reimburse lender KfW for the value of a convertible bond and related costs, a spokesman for the economy ministry said in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg. Privately-held Northvolt filed for bankruptcy protection in the US last month after a desperate bid to secure rescue funding fell short.

Germany is stuck in a period of economic weakness but central bank interest rates need to come down only gradually to make sure inflationary pressures are fully extinguished, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said on Monday, Reuters reported. The euro zone's biggest economy has been the bloc's laggard in recent years and the outlook is bleak as export demand is lacklustre, its oversized industry is in recession and consumers are proving too cautious, building up savings instead of spending cash buffers.

Business confidence in Germany slipped this month, amid mounting pressures on the country’s industrial base, alongside concerns raised by the fracture of its governing coalition and the threat of U.S. trade tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Ifo Institute said Monday that its business-climate index fell to 85.7 in November from 86.5 last month, the fifth fall in six months. The reading also lagged economists’ expectations of 86.1, from a poll compiled by The Wall Street Journal.

The leaders of Germany’s major parties have agreed to hold a federal election on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s troubled three-party coalition last week, Politico reported. Scholz is now expected to hold a vote of confidence on Dec. 16 paving the way for the February election. For days, there has been speculation and debate on the timing of the vote.

Germany’s new finance minister dismissed fears the political turmoil in Berlin will trigger a funding freeze, pledging the federal government will be fully capable of functioning in the weeks before February’s early election, Bloomberg News reported. Joerg Kukies, appointed last week after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his predecessor and brought a premature end to the ruling coalition, said it’s still unclear whether Scholz’s minority government can get a supplementary budget for this year and the 2025 finance plan approved in parliament.

Project developer HH2E AG is set to file for self-administration after it failed to secure financing for one of Germany’s largest hydrogen projects, Bloomberg News reported. HH2E has been fundraising for its first development project, a hydrogen production plant in the Baltic port of Lubmin. While it said negotiations resulted in final agreements, majority shareholder Foresight Group Holdings Ltd. ultimately decided against providing the necessary financing, HH2E said in a statement. Foresight didn’t comment on its role in the breakdown of financing discussions in a separate statement.

Germany’s fractious coalition government collapsed on Wednesday, tipping the economically embattled nation into a political crisis and adding uncertainty for Europe as the region grapples with Donald Trump’s election win in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed Finance Minister Christian Lindner, chairman of the pro-business Free Democratic Party—the smallest member of his three-way coalition of free-market liberals, social democrats and Greens—because of disagreements over economic policy, a spokesman for Scholz said.

German manufacturing orders jumped more than expected in September, driven by large-scale orders, offering a glimpse of hope that the recent downturn in the beleaguered sector may be abating, the Wall Street Journal reported. Orders climbed 4.2% on month in September, according to data published Wednesday by Germany’s statistics agency Destatis. That was better than economists’ expectations for a 1.4% rise, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, and contrasts with the 5.4% fall in August orders.

Germans are eager to sell hundreds of billions of euros’ worth of goods in Italy, while drinking its wines, skiing its Alps and sunning on its beaches. But in the weeks since UniCredit, a multinational bank based in Milan, swooped in to take a 21 percent stake in Commerzbank, one of Germany’s largest lenders, that fondness has been shown to have its limits, the New York Times reported.