Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel says the German economy is facing major longer-term challenges. The first two challenges ... are the need to decarbonise the economy and the ageing of our society, he argued at a change of office ceremony at the Bundesbank’s Regional Office in Saxony and Thuringia. He hailed last week’s rates cut by the ECB Governing Council as the right decision but advised caution, noting that future economic and price developments were still fraught with uncertainty.

Many people in Germany are open to the idea of the digital euro. At the same time, there are still gaps in the general public’s knowledge about the planned new means of payment. These are the results of a recent representative survey of 2,012 people conducted by forsa, a market research and opinion polling company, on behalf of the Deutsche Bundesbank in April 2024. 

The Bundesbank sees the German economy slowly regaining its footing after a roughly two-year period of weakness. Not only will private consumption gradually pick up again, but export business will also improve again from the second half of the year. “The German economy is extricating itself from the period of economic weakness,” Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said on publication of the current Forecast for Germany. According to the forecast, real gross domestic product (GDP) will rise by a calendar-adjusted 0.3% this year.

The German economy is slowly regaining its footing after a roughly two-year period of weakness, according to the Bundesbank’s current Forecast for Germany.