|
Germany said to face $42b budget shortfall
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-25 09:56 The two sides started formal coalition talks a week ago, and working groups
tasked with hammering out the details presented their first reports Monday.
Merkel and Social Democrat Chairman Franz Muentefering said concrete budget
measure had yet to be discussed, leaving open whether Merkel's campaign pledge
to finance a cut in non-wage labor costs by increasing value-added tax was still
alive.
They insisted there would still be room for measures to foster growth.
![Conservative leader and Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel pauses as she addresses a news conference following the second round of coalition talks with the Social Democrats at her headquarters in Berlin October 24, 2005. The new German government will have to find 35 billion euros ($41.80 billion) in extra revenues and savings to meet European Union budget rules by 2007, political leaders said on Monday. It would be the biggest budget consolidation ever attempted by a postwar German government. "We are facing enormous challenges," Merkel said following talks on forming a power-sharing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). [Reuters]](xin_4310022510011051364919.jpg)
Conservative leader
and Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel pauses as she addresses a news
conference following the second round of coalition talks with the Social
Democrats at her headquarters in Berlin October 24,
2005.[Reuters] | "Money is short and it's clear that milk and honey will not flow, but there
will still be healthy bread and decent jam," Muentefering said after the talks
in the headquarters of Merkel's Christian Democrats.
He also said they were broadly agreed on foreign policy, including "good"
relations with the United States, which suffered under Schroeder's opposition to
the war in Iraq.
But commentators expect the Social Democrats to block Merkel's drive to
accelerate reforms begun under Schroeder, who accused her during the campaign of
wanting to wreck cherished welfare safety nets.
|
