Germany has saved 100 billion euros by Mini interest – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The financial support for Greece and the negotiations about are controversial. Here Germany also benefits from the crisis in the euro countries, and particularly in Greece, as from a recent study of the Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) is apparent: According to the calculations, the public budgets in Germany from 2010 to today approximately one hundred billion euros saved.

The total leave at least partly attributed directly to the crisis, said the IWH with. “Germany has financially benefited greatly from the Greek crisis,” it says in the statement. Because of the crisis sought investors to invest their money safely and preferably bought German government bonds. Which is certified by all the major rating agencies a very low risk.

“Every time there was negative news on Greece for the financial markets in recent years, fell, interest rates on German government bonds”, be stated the IWH experts. Thus, the interest rates on government bonds have fallen in January in a single day by 0.3 percentage points, as a victory of the now ruling party Syriza loomed. The bonds of other countries – such as the US, France or the Netherlands – have benefited, “but in a much smaller extent”

crisis countries to help public budgets at rates Save

If the Greek crisis in order for Germany even at a good business? The IWH writes: “These savings exceed the cost of the crisis – even if Greece would not serve its debt completely Germany has so benefited in any case from the Greek crisis..”

Whether the savings for the German budget actually exceed the cost of the crisis, but is at least debatable. The German share of the recent rescue packages for Greece, which is estimated at around 90 billion euros, one can not compare with the mentioned 100 billion easily – precisely because this sum can be attributed directly to the crisis only partially. In addition, it is unclear what additional costs might face Germany, when the Greek crisis worsened.

In any case, the crisis in Greece is the sole cause for the interest savings. “The main driver for the low interest rates, the economic weakness in the euro area,” says Jens Boysen-Hogrefe, deputy head of the Forecast Center at the Institute for World Economy (IfW) in Kiel. So: The crisis in other euro zone countries like Italy and Spain expressed the interest for Germany

In contrast to the German government, many citizens would, however, also lose money through low interest rates.. Because what the heavily indebted state saves, escapes the asset owners in the return on their assets.