According to the current issue of the Monthly Report, prior to the coronavirus crisis local government finances were in good shape overall, albeit with major differences from municipality to municipality. Now, as a result of the coronavirus crisis, the report points to a risk of budget imbalances becoming more widespread again and local governments turning to cash advances to finance their budgets.

“The German economy is overcoming the coronavirus crisis and is poised for the start of a strong upswing,” writes the Bundesbank in its semi-annual projection. The Bundesbank’s economists expect that gross domestic product will reattain its pre-crisis level as early as this summer. It is likely that the rate of inflation will rise strongly to 2.6% in 2021.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann says that climate-related financial disclosures should be mandatory. “The Eurosystem has a legitimate interest in making climate-related risks more transparent,” he said in a speech at the Green Swan 2021 Global Virtual Conference.

The German Financial Stability Committee (G-FSC) has presented its eighth report on financial stability in Germany to the German Bundestag. Its report focuses on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the German financial system.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann refuted the harsh criticism directed at the debt brake by some. In a speech delivered in honour of the 70th anniversary of the German Economic Institute, he said that it was “not an impediment to forward-looking investment and a modern state”.

German economic output could grow again significantly in the second quarter of 2021, according to the Bundesbank’s Monthly Report. Rapid progress in the vaccination campaign opens the prospect of a considerable loosening of containment measures in the coming months. GDP could then exceed its pre-crisis level as early as the fourth quarter.

Issuance in the German capital market in 2020, which was marked by the economic repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic, reached a new record high of €1.74 trillion.

Jens Weidmann's reply to an open letter from climate activists 

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann believes that central banks should not employ monetary policy to pursue distributive aims. “Not only do we lack the democratic legitimacy to do so, the vagueness of the effects also renders monetary policy ill-suited for targeted interventions to tackle distributional issues,” he explained at an international research conference organised by the Bundesbank.

Shortly before the second lockdown in October 2020, firms in Germany expected an inflation rate of 1.5 percent over the next 12 months. For the past 12 months, they likewise estimated an inflation rate of 1.5 percent, a Bundesbank survey shows. “This suggests that enterprises’ inflation expectations were firmly anchored, despite the economic slump,” the Bundesbank writes in its most recent Monthly Report.