Since the new German federal government has imposed tight fiscal policy restrictions on itself, a pragmatic approach is needed to finance the spending requirements of the transformation. The financing instruments mentioned in the coalition agreement appears to be suitable in principle for...

Although austerity was particularly strong in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2008 and its consequences in the euro area, Italian fiscal policies have been characterised by tough consolidation periods ever since the 1990s.

In this article, after a brief sketch of the fiscal strategy of the German Government and the current budgetary situation, it is first argued that the current budget dispute could have been avoided because the coalition essentially created the dispute through two fiscal (mid)decisions last year....