Germany’s former economy minister Peter Altmaier promised it would act as the “economic locomotive” that pulled the world out of its Covid-19 crisis — but instead the country now looks more like Europe’s laggard.
For a while, Germany was a pillar of relative resilience, its economy shrinking less than most of Europe in 2020. However, for the past year other countries have been rebounding faster and even Italy is expected to regain pre-pandemic levels of gross domestic product before Germany, which is teetering on the brink of a winter recession.
“Germany had a very good first half of the crisis, but in 2021 things reversed,” said Gilles Moec, chief economist at French insurer Axa, adding that weaknesses in the economy were evident “before the pandemic when Germany was already underperforming”.