Berlin For almost a decade, until the corona crisis, the federal government had money in abundance. One reason was steadily increasing tax revenues. The second: an ever lower interest burden.

Last year, the federal government paid just four billion euros for its debt thanks to low interest rates. For comparison: in 2008 it was still 40 billion euros. Thanks to the interest savings, the household consolidated itself without any effort to save.

But those times are over, the trend is now reversing: According to the draft budget, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) will have to spend 29.6 billion euros on interest as early as next year.

Hardly anyone foresaw this striking increase. Especially not those economists and politicians who have been calling for higher debts for years. Even if interest rates did rise again, they argued, it would take many, many years for them to feed through to the federal budget. Because the bonds often run for many years.