Five leading economic research institutes have significantly revised their forecast for the current year downwards. They now only expect economic output to grow by 0.1 percent.
In the fall they had assumed that gross domestic product would increase by 1.3 percent in 2024. According to experts, unemployment is only likely to increase slightly and will fall again from spring onwards. The institutes recommend a careful reform of the debt brake in order to allow more debt-financed investments than before. The federal government expects growth of 0.2 percent this year.