German exports unexpectedly fell in November as high inflation and market uncertainty continue to weigh on Europe's largest economy despite fading supply chain problems, Reuters reported. Exports fell by 0.3% on the month, data from the federal statistics office showed on Thursday. November's drop comes after October's figures were revised up, to growth of 0.8% from an initially reported 0.6% fall. Imports also posted a bigger-than-expected drop of 3.3% in November, compared with consensus for a 0.5% decline.
Read more
The tone of the most recent talks between the European Union and Britain on resolving the status of Northern Ireland after Brexit was very positive, giving confidence that a solution will soon be found, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Speaking after meeting her British counterpart James Cleverly in London, she said that war in Ukraine served as a reminder to focus on the most important task of letting people live in peace and freedom.
Germany supports the World Bank modifying its country-based business model and is in favour of the Bank setting incentives for issues like climate protection, the German Development Ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported. On Monday, Reuters reported that the World Bank was seeking to vastly expand its lending capacity to address climate change and other global crises and will negotiate with shareholders ahead of April meetings on proposals that include a capital increase and new lending tools.
Read more
German inflation slowed more than anticipated in December after the government paid some households’ gas bills for the month, offering a temporary respite in the country’s cost-of-living crisis, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer-price growth at 9.6% was the weakest since August. Economists anticipated 10.2%, according to the median of 20 forecasts. The decline to single digits in the main rate masks an increase in food costs across Germany at the end of 2022, aggravating a squeeze on the poorest families and stoking the risk of a wage-price spiral.
Read more
German unemployment fell in December, Labour Office figures showed on Tuesday, with the labour market overall being only moderately affected by the war in Ukraine last year, Reuters reported. The Federal Labour Office said the number of people out of work decreased by 13,000 in seasonally adjusted terms to 2.52 million. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected that figure to rise by 15,000. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained stable at 5.5%.
Read more
The German government sees plans to pay Lufthansa executive board members a bonus for 2021 and 2022, despite the German airline receiving state aid at the time, as in breach of their agreement, said a German government spokesperson last Wednesday, Reuters reported. The bonus cannot be accrued and paid out at a later date, said the spokesperson, who added the government is in talks with Lufthansa.
The European Commission said on Tuesday it had approved Germany's 34.5 billion euro ($36.60 billion) plan to recapitalise German natural gas trader Uniper, subject to future state divestment, management pay and acquisitions, Reuters reported. The plan complies with EU state aid rules on the necessity, appropriateness and size of the intervention, the Commission said in a statement.
Read more
Shareholders in Uniper on Monday approved a state bailout that has so far cost the German government more than 50 billion euros ($53 billion), paving a way for a de facto nationalisation of the struggling gas giant, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Klaus-Dieter Maubach earlier told a virtual extraordinary meeting that the disarray caused by the loss of gas supplies from Russia could leave shareholders with nothing if they did not accept the German proposal.
Read more
The key prosecution witness in Germany's biggest post-war fraud trial admitted guilt on Monday in a scam that led to Wirecard's collapse but said the company was a "swindle" from the start, with former chief executive Markus Braun at its core, Reuters reported. Wirecard's downfall two years ago shook the German business establishment, putting politicians who had backed it under intense scrutiny, along with regulators that took years to investigate allegations against the payments company.
Read more
After setting aside almost half a trillion dollars to date tackling its energy crisis, Germany is also poised to take on the risks associated with 216 billion euros ($229 billion) of derivatives built up by energy giant Uniper, Reuters reported. Germany is nationalising Uniper in what is the biggest corporate bailout in the country's history, after Russia's move to choke off gas threw Europe's biggest economy into chaos. Uniper has already booked billions of euros of losses on derivatives, exacerbating a crisis as it rushed to plug the gap left after Russia turned off the taps.
Read more