Germany’s ‘Whatever It Takes’ Moment Powers European Markets
- Merz announces historic plan to fund defense, infrastructure
- Stocks rally, bonds slump as investors assess spending shift
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Germany’s historic plan to ramp up spending shook European markets on Wednesday, powering equities past their US peers, reviving the euro from the brink of parity with the dollar and consigning German bunds to their worst day since 1990.
Investors hailed a landmark moment in Europe’s largest economy and traditional advocate of tight budgets after Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz declared Germany would do “whatever it takes” to defend itself and pledged to ease constraints on government spending.