Germany news: Economic institutes slash 2026 growth forecast

A teenager was in critical condition after being stabbed in the back in the western German town of Herford on Thursday evening, according to local police.

The incident reportedly occurred in a side street near the town's Christmas market.

Police believe the attacker and victim, a 16-year-old boy, knew each other and have opened a murder inquiry.

Investigators say one or several perpetrators fled the scene and are still on the run.

The local newspaper Neue Westfälische Zeitung quoted witnesses who said the teenager had appealed for help and had a knife sticking out of his back.

He was treated and stabilized at the scene before being taken to the hospital.

Hundreds of Afghans waiting in Pakistan will be told in the coming days that they can no longer receive asylum in Germany because "there is no longer any political interest in their admission."

With these terse words, the spokeswoman for the German Interior Ministry, Sonja Kock, revealed that 640 people waiting in Pakistan to be relocated to Germany will not be able to come after all.

The pledge is being revoked because Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government in Berlin aims to scrap the resettlement programs "as far as possible."

Read more about Germany's decision to revoke pledges to grant asylum to Afghans

The new permanent exhibition at the Haus der Geschichte in Bonn brings 80 years of German history to life, including the post-war period, the fall of the Berlin Wall — and concluding with present-day protests.

Read the full story on the new exhibition on German history in Bonn.

A political artists' collective has placed a statue of murdered politician Walter Lübcke outside the CDU headquarters.

Lübcke was killed by a supporter of the far-right AfD, which the activists are warning against.

Read DW's full report on the protest against the CDU's alleged accommodation of far-right policies.

A new study by market and social research institute Ipsos showed that 46% of Germans would rather have been born in 1975 than in 2025, while only 14% would prefer to have been born today.

According to the poll, 61% of respondents believe that people in Germany were happier in 1975 than they are today, while 6% see it the other way around.

A majority of 67% think there was a better sense of security on the streets in the past than now. More than half of the respondents, 53%, believe that living without fear of war or conflict was more possible in 1975 than it is today.

In terms of living standards, responses were less clear: 40% thought it was better in 1975, while 45% thought it was better now.

European Union plans to completely halt the registration of new cars powered or partially powered by internal combustion as of 2035 are set to be abandoned, according to a senior conservative European politician from Germany. 

Manfred Weber, the head of the center-right EPP alliance of parties in the European Parliament, which includes Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU and its Bavarian sister party (CSU), made the comments in an interview with newspaper Bild.

Germany's DPA news agency cited an anonymous source saying the European Commission planned to suggest withdrawing plans to ban combustion engines — plans the Commission itself presented under the leadership of President Ursula von der Leyen. 

Merz had already voiced opposition and desires to change the plans, amid intensifying struggles for the European and German car industry and amid claims from carmakers and trade unions that the plans were not realistic.

"With new registrations from 2035, now rather than a 100% reduction, there will be a mandatory 90% reduction in the combined carbon dioxide emissions of carmakers' fleets as a whole," Weber told Bild.

He said the 100% target would not come into effect in 2040 either, and that his comments followed discussions with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, another CDU/CSU politician from Germany. 

"With this, the technological ban of internal combustion engines is off the table," Bild quoted Weber as saying. "All the engines currently built in Germany could still be produced and sold." 

Even taking Weber's comments at face value, with no such plans or details formally announced yet, his claim that all engines currently in production could still be used is only technically true. 

Based on his comments, carmakers would still need to reduce the overall CO2 emissions of their fleets at the exhaust pipe by 90%. This would still involve either major changes to the types of engines they use or to the number of cars using such engines that they sell.

Electric cars have nominal CO2 emissions of zero at the point of road usage. Depending on production and electricity generation methods, they are capable of causing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution higher up the production chain, but usually at lower levels.

Magdeburg's traffic and highways service has said that almost three-quarters of the roughly 5,200 chickens involved in a transport truck crash near the city died in its aftermath. 

The morning accident in the Harz region on the A36 autobahn severely disrupted traffic (see entry below), with a section of the highway still closed late on Thursday afternoon. 

Thousands of the chickens on the 15-ton transport either died in the crash or had to be culled as a result of injuries sustained during or after the accident. 

Some of them were loose on or near the highway in the aftermath, having escaped from their damaged transport containers.

Veterinary officials, firefighters and other emergency workers were dispatched to the scene to help gather up the animals and clear the wreckage.

Researchers at the University of Cologne have found that "US security authorities have extensive rights to disclose and access communication data and information stored in clouds" in Europe, according to an expert opinion recently released following a freedom of information request.

Looking at German government data, the researchers found that European cloud computing companies with US customers might be subject to the same disclosure rules as US-based enterprises.

The revelation has once again raised alarm bells in Europe about the protection of consumer data.

In an opinion piece for IT news outlet Heise, tech security journalist Stefan Krempl wrote: "Companies are required to hand over data even if it is stored outside the USA. The decisive factor is therefore not the physical storage location of the information, but the control over it by the affected company."

"This implies that even data stored in data centers on European soil and managed through German subsidiaries are subject to access. The prerequisite is that the US parent company exercises ultimate control."

The German Federal Statistical Office, Destatis, has estimated that the country's aging population could shrink by almost 10 million people, to around 75 million, by 2070.

Germany has been grappling to stabilize pension levels, with lawmakers recently passing legislation that could prompt higher taxes and weigh on economic growth.

According to Destatis, one in four people in Germany will be aged over 67 in a decade's time, and almost 21 million people, or 27% of the population, will be of pension age by 2038.

By 2070, the number of pensioners for every 100 people in work could nearly double.

"There would then be less than two contributors per pension benefits recipient," said Karsten Lammer, head of the office's population department. "Pressure on the welfare system is growing."

There are only two of 27 scenarios that would see the population rise in Germany, Destatis said. Both involve high immigration levels and rising birth rates.

Successive German governments have sought to cut immigration amid a rise in anti-immigrant campaigning.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is meeting with his French and Spanish counterparts in Berlin, with defense contracting projects on the agenda, according to Germany's Defense Ministry. 

There has been speculation that the three countries would try to break a deadlock over Europe's next-generation fighter jet program.

The project, Future Combat Air System (FCAS), is worth up to €100 billion ($117 billion) and is seen as crucial for Europe's defense. But despite its launch more than eight years ago, it has been stalled by industrial rivalries.

On Wednesday, Germany's powerful IG Metall union warned that it would stop cooperating on the project if France's Dassault were still involved.

In response, the French metalworking employers' organisation, whose president is Dassault's CEO Eric Trappier, said it cannot accept an exclusion of France's industrial interests.

EU leaders are meeting next week and will likely discuss the topic. 

Germany's federal statistical office Destatis said hotels in the country were expected to have another record year in 2025, despite a slight decline in visitors from abroad.

By the end of October, hotels with more than 10 beds recorded a total of 433.5 million overnight stays, according to Destatis. The figure marks an increase by 0.1% on the record figures seen in the same period last year.

Stays by domestic tourists were also up by 0.6% from last year, with a total of 362 million stays. 

However, the number of guests from abroad declined by 2.3% to 71.5 million overnight stays. 

The Munich-based ifo Institute is predicting that the German economy will grow by 0.8% in 2026 and 1.1% in 2027, down by 0.5 percentage points each compared to the last projection in September.

Researchers at the leading economic institute also revised their forecast for the current year, expecting gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by only 0.1%, down from 0.2%.

The figures are much lower than the German government's own economic forecast, expecting GDP to grow by 1.3% and 1.4% in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the RWI Leibniz Institute also slashed their forecasts, with both expecting expansion of 1%.

Timo Wollmershäuser, head of forecasts at ifo, said Germany was fighting to catch up on innovation, but red tape and outdated infrastructure were slowing the process. 

"The German economy is adapting only slowly and at great expense to the structural shift through innovation and new business models," said Wollmershäuser.

"Measures are needed that strengthen the supply of labor through additional incentives to increase working hours or participation in the labour market, and boost productivity through comprehensive digitalization, and simplification of the state system."

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for Europe's role in NATO's foreign and security policy to be strengthened, saying it is an "absolute priority." 

Speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Merz said EU countries must assert their unity in response to the new US national security strategy, which sparked backlash from Washington's European allies.  

"This means that where we can work together with the US in our own interests, beyond rhetoric, we will of course continue to do so," Merz said, noting this cooperation includes working toward peace in Ukraine.

"We will do this as a united and strong Europe. Keeping this Europe together even under pressure and not allowing it to be divided by anything or anyone is more important than ever. We need a united, strong Europe more than ever before," Merz said.

Merz confirmed he spoke with US President Donald Trump and other European leaders on the phone a day earlier. He said that conversation "left the strong impression that [Trump] is ready to go down this path with us, because he knows that the Europeans and their interests have to be heard."

Read more about what Merz said on the US proposal to end the war and Europe's role in those efforts in our Ukraine blog.

Thousands of chickens were on the run after a lorry overturned on a highway, authorities in the central German city of Magdeburg said. 

Traffic was disrupted toward the nearby city of Braunschweig, as chickens were roaming freely on and alongside the road.

It was not immediately clear what made the vehicle tip onto its side, spilling 15 tons of cargo. 

The driver was unharmed, and veterinary authorities were called in to capture the animals.

After an hourslong operation, responders have sealed a leak of at least 200,000 liters (about 52,835 gallons) of crude oil from a pipeline in the eastern German state of Brandenburg.

The state's minister of the environment, Hanka Mittelstädt, is due to visit the site of the incident on Thursday to assess the damage, while a major cleanup is underway. 

Authorities said the leak started on Wednesday evening after a workplace accident. 

The leak went on for several hours into the night, with the amount spilled likely higher than estimated, Alexander Trenn, head of the Schwedt fire brigade, told the German news agency dpa. 

Refinery operator PCK said, citing initial findings, that the incident was likely caused by preparatory work for a planned safety test on the pipeline, ruling out deliberate interference.