German debt rises citizens donate thousands of euros to pay it off

Amidst the rise in German state debt significantly during the past two years due to the Corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine, hundreds of Germans decided to contribute to the repayment of these debts by donating to the state.

Last year, 236 German citizens donated about 64,000 euros to the state voluntarily, according to the government's response to a request for briefing from former Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian alliance, the German news agency reported yesterday, Saturday.

The government said that the total donated by these citizens amounted to exactly 63,988 and 54 euros. This money reached the account known as the Debt Payment Account of the Ministry of Finance, which is being used specifically for this purpose.

The volume of donations on this account in 2018 amounted to more than 600,000 euros, which is equivalent to ten times the donations of last year, according to the German "Deutsche Welle" network.

The government said that "the debt repayment account was created by the Ministry of Finance at the request of many enthusiastic citizens, and it is available for voluntary payments, and it is expected that it will continue for this reason in its current form in the future as well."

In its response, the government stated that the five highest payments reached last year's account with Deutsche Bank, ranging between 15,000 and 25,000 euros.

Given the country's billions of euros in debt due to the coronavirus and the conflict in Ukraine, these donations are literally just drops on a hot stone. And government sources revealed a few days ago that Germany plans to increase the new debt by 39.2 billion euros ($42.04 billion) this year to ease the impact of the repercussions of the Russian attack on Ukraine on Europe's largest economy. The planned new borrowing would raise Germany's net debt in 2022 to 138.9 billion euros.

Germany temporarily suspended constitutional restrictions on new debt to fund unprecedented fiscal support for the economy during the coronavirus pandemic, by borrowing 130 billion euros in 2020. New borrowing reached a record 215 billion euros last year.