Merkel pressed to boost investment as poll race looms

BERLIN: Germany should be legally bound to invest in infrastructure, the centre-left challenger to Chancellor Angela Merkel in September elections said on Sunday (Jul 16). German Chancellor Angela Merkel waits for the start of the annual ‘Summer Interview’ with the German broadcasting service ARD in Berlin, Germany on Jul 16, 2017. (Photo source : AP/Michael Sohn) Cash-rich Germany is also facing pressure from its trading partners to spend more to cut its massive trade surplus, and the issue is feeding into the looming ballot race. Berlin “must use its money to improve public infrastructure according to binding rules,” Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate Martin Schulz said at a campaign event in the German capital. Schulz did not call for the lifting of the “debt brake” built into the German constitution at Merkel’s behest in 2009, which sets legal limits on deficits in federal and regional budgets. Berlin has booked budget surpluses in recent years and reduced its debt levels under finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. Merkel insisted her conservative-led governments had “achieved a balanced budgets and massively increased investments at the same time” in an interview with ARD public television later on Sunday. “We already fix [investments] in many areas in our medium-term spending plans,” she said. German public spending is a hot topic at home and abroad. Trading partners have called on the government to invest more as a way of reducing its massive trade surplus – the amount its exports outweigh its imports. Countries like France or the United…