The three parties supporting German
Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed late Monday in Berlin on a fresh round of
stimulus for the weakening German economy, sources at the meeting said, dpa reported.
Senior officials said the governing parties had committed to a huge wave of
spending likely to inject 50 billion euros (66 billion dollars) into the
economy as well as a massive government fund to boost struggling industries
with loans and guarantees.
The "credit and guarantee fund" will reportedly be worth 100 billion
euros (135 billion dollars).
Officials said its name would be a way of stressing that it was not a vehicle
for taking industries into government ownership.
The Social Democrats (SPD) and Christian Social Union (CSU) have been wrangling
for weeks with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) over the package, with
each of them eager to piggy-back long- standing party policies onto the huge
surge of state spending.
...