Economic activity in Germany may have more or less stagnated in the first quarter of 2022, the Bundesbank’s economists write in the current issue of the Monthly Report. They expect Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine to have had only a limited impact on Germany’s economy at first. Even so, the repercussions of the war are likely to significantly weaken the recovery, which had actually got off to a strong start. “Disruptions to foreign trade and supply chains, soaring energy prices and heightened uncertainty are weighing on enterprises and households,” the report states.

The year 2020 saw German economic output contract by 5.0%, with the drop in gross domestic product in a year overshadowed by COVID-19 bringing to an end a ten-year run of growth. This compares with a 0.6% rate of expansion in 2019.