Why in news?

Germany, the world’s third-largest economy with a $5 trillion GDP, is experiencing near-zero growth this year, with output expected to rise only 0.2%.

This stagnation follows two consecutive years of recession, marking a prolonged period of weak economic performance. These findings come from the annual report of the German Council of Economic Experts, an independent body established in 1963 to assess the country’s macroeconomic trends.

What’s in Today’s Article?

• Germany’s Return as the “Sick Man of Europe”
• Germany’s Economy Falling Behind Europe and the World
• Policy Recommendations to Boost Growth

Germany’s Return as the “Sick Man of Europe”

• Germany is again being labelled the “sick man of Europe,” with chronic stagnation requiring long-term structural reforms.
• The economy has grown only 0.1% since 2019, far below the US and euro area. Forecasts remain bleak, with potential growth expected at just 0.4% per year.
• New Economic Challenges: From Worker Shortages to Rising Labor Costs
  • Unlike the early 2000s, Germany now faces worker shortages, not job scarcity.
    • 20 million workers will retire in the next decade, while only 12.5 million will enter the labor force.
    • Aging populations mean fewer hours worked and higher labor costs.
    • Unit labor costs have risen due to sluggish productivity and higher wages.
  • Employment stability measures like short-time work hinder structural change by discouraging worker mobility into more productive sectors.
• Manufacturing Decline and High Energy Costs
  • Germany’s manufacturing sector—once the engine of growth—has been declining since 2018.
  • Key factors:
    • Loss of competitiveness
    • Weak foreign demand
    • Rising trade fragmentation
    • Threat of US tariffs
    • Competition from China
  • Energy-intensive industries have suffered from persistently high energy costs, making Germany less attractive for emerging sectors like AI and data centers.
• Dependence on Legacy Industries and Weak Capital Markets
  • Germany’s strength in automotive, chemicals, and mechanical engineering has created over-reliance on legacy “mid-tech” sectors.
  • This limits diversification into high-tech fields like IT and biotechnology.
  • Capital markets remain shallow:
    • Heavy dependence on banks
    • Insufficient venture capital, especially for scale-ups
    • Lack of large institutional investors willing to back European funds
  • This pushes promising start-ups to relocate to the US.

Germany’s Economy Falling Behind Europe and the World

• Germany is no longer leading the euro area; instead, it is lagging behind both European and global growth averages.
• The German Council of Economic Experts attributes the slowdown to a combination of cyclical weaknesses, structural challenges, and major geopolitical shifts that have disrupted the traditional German export-driven model.
• Geopolitical Shifts Undermining Germany’s Economic Model
  • A key disruption has been the change in US leadership and America’s reduced willingness to provide economic and security guarantees to allies like Germany.
  • This has forced Berlin and other European countries to reconsider their security frameworks and allocate more resources to defence and trade resilience.
  • Fragmentation within the European Single Market has also prevented EU nations from crafting strong collective responses to global challenges, weakening competitiveness.
• Domestic Challenges Intensifying the Slowdown
  • Germany faces internal pressures as well:
    • Declining industrial competitiveness
    • Rapid demographic ageing
    • Weak implementation of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s fiscal package despite ambitious promises for infrastructure and defence investments

Policy Recommendations to Boost Growth

• The German Council of Experts suggests four key steps:
  • Better targeted fiscal spending to increase productive investment.
  • Stronger European economic integration, removing barriers to a true single market for goods and services.
  • Corporate tax cuts to incentivise business investment.
  • Reducing wealth inequality, including a state-subsidised long-term investment account to improve financial security, especially for older citizens.
• If Germany fails to revive growth soon, India — with a GDP nearing $4 trillion — may surpass it to become the world’s third-largest economy.