The Bundesbank will turn 65 on 1 August 2022. “The Bundesbank’s greatest achievement is certainly that it has created a culture of monetary stability and embedded it in the public con-sciousness”, said Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel in an interview he gave to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) to mark the anniversary. He noted that the currently very high inflation rates were weighing on many people and illustrated the importance of price stability, adding that “we can and must now do everything we can to prevent the current high level of inflation from becoming entrenched”. “People trust the Bundesbank, and they should continue to be able to do so.”

The Bundesbank’s experts have created a new provisional dataset that can be used to examine wealth and debt developments at the level of individual households in Germany in a timely manner at quarterly intervals. According to this dataset, wealth inequality decreased slightly between 2009 and 2021, but remains high overall. The analysis presented in the current Monthly Report also shows that the rate of return on total assets varies considerably between individual households.

Under the European budgetary surveillance procedure, EU member states are obliged to submit data on general government deficit and debt levels to the European Commission twice a year.