The German government did not use 95 percent of the new debt taken on in 2025 for additional infrastructure investments. This is the conclusion reached by a recent ifo Institute calculation on the use of the Special Fund for Climate Neutrality and Infrastructure (SVIK). “We found that the government used the debt-financed funds almost entirely for other purposes, in other words, to plug budget holes. That’s a major problem. The additional debt taken on was supposed to be used for additional investments that support economic growth in the long term,” says ifo President Clemens Fuest. [...]