Bürgergeld to remain unchanged next year

Despite originally planning to raise the amount of citizen’s allowance – or Bürgergeld – next year, budgetary pressures have led the current traffic light government to scrap the plans.

Citizen’s allowance will not be raised next year as planned – even as cost of living increases.

Bürgergeld reform was a major election promise of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, replacing the old Hartz IV system. When the first tier of unemployment insurance runs out in Germany – typically after one year of not working – Bürgergeld kicks in at a fixed amount. 

READ ALSO: Can I get unemployment benefits in Germany if I quit my job?

Potsdam records warmest beginning to September in 130 years

The recent high temperatures in Germany have already broken records in at least one major German city.

The Brandenburg state capital of Potsdam saw temperatures climb to 35 C in recent days – a temperature last seen around 130 years ago in 1895.

Nearby Berlin saw the mercury hit 34 C on Wednesday – the highest since 1919.

READ ALSO: Which German cities are best prepared for extreme heat?

German army activates air-defence system, citing Russia threat

Germany’s military put a first Iris-T air-defence system into service on its own soil Wednesday having delivered several of them to war-torn Ukraine to intercept Russian rockets, drones and missiles.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the surface-to-air system was part of a build-up of German and European defences launched after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the Ukraine invasion in 2022.

“Russia has been massively rearming for many years, especially in the field of rockets and cruise missiles,” Scholz said at the inauguration ceremony at a base in Todendorf near the northern city of Hamburg.

Putin had broken disarmament treaties and “deployed missiles as far as Kaliningrad”, a Russian exclave located some 530 kilometres from Berlin, he added.

“It would be negligent not to respond to this appropriately,” the chancellor said. “A failure to act would put peace at risk. I will not allow that.”

Scholz, who was joined by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, said the system was part of the European Sky Shield Initiative, which also includes long-range defences against ballistic missiles.

The German military has ordered six of the Iris-T SLM systems at a total cost of €950 million from manufacturer Diehl Defence, to be delivered by May 2027.

VW bosses defend possible plant closures at stormy meeting

Volkswagen executives defended plans to consider the unprecedented closure of factories in Germany during a heated meeting Wednesday with thousands of staff, saying falling sales had hit it hard.

Several thousand employees fearful about their future protested at VW’s historic headquarters ahead of the gathering, waving banners and blowing whistles.

Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen’s chief financial officer, said car sales in Europe were still far below pre-pandemic levels.

For Europe’s top carmaker, this meant a loss of around 500,000 vehicle sales a year, “the equivalent of around two plants,” he said.

“The market is simply no longer there,” he told the meeting, attended by some 25,000 staff, with some following on screens outside.

“We need to increase productivity and reduce costs. We still have a year, maybe two years, to turn things around,” he added, without giving further details of the savings plan.

The comments from the finance chief in Wolfsburg came two days after the shock announcement was first made to staff in an internal memo.

Volkswagen last year announced plans for a €10 billion savings programme and flagged cuts to its workforce over the coming years to improve profitability.

German car sales plunge in August as EV slump worsens

Sales of new cars plummeted in Germany in August, official data showed Wednesday, dragged down by a record fall in demand for electric vehicles in Europe’s biggest auto market.

A total of 197,322 new cars were registered in Germany last month, the KBA federal transport authority said, a 27.8-percent drop on a year earlier.

The fall was led by a “historic decline” in sales of in battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), the VDIK car importers’ federation said, which plunged by 68.8 percent to just over 27,000 units.

The electric slump was partly down to a comparison effect with August 2023, when drivers rushed to buy EVs before certain government subsidies ran out.

But German EV sales have been on a downward path all year in the wake of the phaseout of purchase incentives, adding to the headwinds for carmakers as they face stricter climate targets in coming years and stiffer competition from abroad.

Electric mobility “has gone into reverse gear in Germany,” said EY analyst Constantin Gall, adding that he saw little improvement ahead.

Foreign minister heads to Middle East in Gaza truce push

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Wednesday set off for a diplomatic tour of the Middle East as efforts continue towards a deal between Israel and Hamas to end the Gaza war.

Pressure has mounted on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal to end the fighting, days after Israel’s military recovered six killed hostages from a Gaza tunnel.

Baerbock said the “nightmare” of the conflict must end and called for all efforts needed “towards a humanitarian ceasefire that will lead to the release of the hostages and put an end to the deaths”.

A ceasefire plan proposed by US President Joe Biden in May “must now finally be adopted”, Baerbock said.

The trip will be Baerbock’s ninth to Israel and her 11th to the Middle East since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war.

With reporting by Paul Krantz and Aaron Burnett.