Tax & Spend

Germany’s Battered Coalition Heads for Next Budget Disaster

  • Setting up 2025 budget will be even more tricky than this year
  • Government must plug €20 billion gap to comply with debt limit
Christian Lindner, left, Robert Habeck and Olaf Scholz in Berlin, on Jan. 31.Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
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Germany’s parliament passed a hard-fought budget for 2024 on Friday, but that will probably offer little respite in what has become a protracted national argument about money.

The bill settles the most pressing dispute sparked by a legal ruling in mid-November on government borrowing. While that’s been the toughest test so far for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition, an even more daunting battle looms for next year’s budget.