Federal deficit increases – federal interest expenditure almost triples

“At the federal government, the trend of sharply increased interest expenses continued,” explained the statisticians. “39.4 billion euros means almost three times more interest payments than in the same period last year.” The reason for this is that the European Central Bank (ECB) raised its key interest rate to 4.5 percent in the fight against high inflation. This also makes financing more expensive for the public sector. The federal states’ interest burden also rose, by 8.3 percent to 7.7 billion euros. Municipal interest expenses increased by 40.6 percent to 2.1 billion euros. On the other hand, interest income for the federal government (9.3 billion euros), states (1.9 billion euros) and municipalities (1.1 billion euros) has roughly doubled, and for social insurance it has even increased almost eightfold.