I am arguing in favour of domestic reforms in Germany, for careful handling of EU and EMU enlargement and for maintaining the fiscal policy rules in the policy mix of European Economic and Monetary Union. Not least, these rules have to be applied in such a way that “budgetary exuberance” is avoided in an upswing.
I am therefore less concerned with short-term cyclical movements than with medium and long-term economic trends in Germany. For this reason, I shall start by looking back and, in doing so, have to state that Germany’s economic development over the past decade has often tended to be disappointing by international standards. I.