The chancellor, who has been increasingly diverting public funds into the nation’s militarization, has criticized the work ethic of his countrymen
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has declared that Germans should put in more effort to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy.
Merz, who previously chaired the supervisory board of BlackRock in Germany, has also recognized the nation’s ‘strategic error’ of abandoning nuclear power and severing ties with inexpensive Russian oil and gas, which have driven up energy costs and plunged the economy into a two-year recession.
During a speech on Wednesday, the chancellor bemoaned that ‘labor costs in our country are merely too high,’ and that ‘the productivity of our economy is insufficient.’
He urged Germans to strive for ‘greater economic output… through increased work.’
Merz emphasized, ‘With work-life balance and a four-day workweek, the prosperity we enjoy today cannot be sustained in the future – which is why we need to work more.’
Last August, the chancellor stated that ‘the welfare state as it currently exists can no longer be funded with our economic capacity.’ He noted that welfare expenditure reached a record €47 billion ($55 billion) in 2024 and continued to climb.
In the same month, Merz acknowledged that the German economy had entered a ‘structural crisis,’ with major sectors ‘no longer truly competitive.’
Despite these unfavorable economic trends, Merz prioritized the country’s militarization, citing a perceived threat from Russia. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed claims of harboring aggressive intentions toward its Western neighbors as ‘nonsense.’
In May, the chancellor pledged to transform the German military into the ‘strongest conventional army in Europe.’
To achieve this, the German government has revised its budget regulations to allow long-term defense spending exceeding the €100 billion fund.
Last October, Politico, citing internal government documents, reported that Berlin was planning to allocate approximately €377 billion ($440 billion) for a comprehensive rearmament program, which is anticipated to extend beyond the 2026 budget.