Saturday 15th of November 2025
Home » Blogs » Gus Leonisky's blog

exploding cost of germany's economy....

The German parliament's budget committee has signed off on the budget presented by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD). The exploding cost of Germany's welfare system is putting pressure on the state coffers — along with the billions of euros needed to rearm the Bundeswehr and continue support for Ukraine in its war of self defense against Russia.

 

German government agrees on record debt for 2026

BY Jens Thurau

Germany's 2026 budget has cleared a key hurdle. Among the big items are pensions, an overhaul of the German armed services and more support for Ukraine. The plan now faces a final vote in parliament.

 

The new borrowing of some 180 billion euros is the second-highest in the country's history — beaten only during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be put to a final vote in the Bundestag.

The core €524.5 billion ($609,35 bn) budget includes more than €97.7 billion in new loans — 8 billion more than the budget experts from the center-right and center-left coalition government had envisaged just a few weeks ago.

But there's also an additional €82 billion of debt, which will be used to upgrade the Bundeswehr, invest in the country's ailing infrastructure, and in climate protection measures. That money is exempt from the statutory "debt brake."

SPD say investments should boost trust in democracy

Earlier this year, the Social Democrats (SPD), Christian Democrats (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Green Party agreed on two new special funds that are not subject to the rigid debt rules enshrined in Germany's Basic Law. The Bundeswehr will receive €500 billion over the next few years and there is another €500 billion set aside for infrastructure, roads and railways, and climate protection. Funds from these assets will be drawn on for the first time in 2026.

SPD budget expert Thorsten Rudolf is optimistic about the future despite the high levels of borrowing. He said in Berlin: "If we take a broader view, we have to say that we are now in the sixth year of the crisis since Covid. It was perhaps naive to believe that a few decisions in Berlin would turn the mood around within a few months."

 Opposition accuse government of just shunting money around

The Department of Labor and Social Affairs, headed by Bärbel Bas (SPD), is again the largest item in the budget. Almost €198 billion are earmarked for social benefits — primarily to prop up the state pension system.

Almost €83 billion are intended for defense. A large portion of that will be invested in upgrading the armed services to make it capable of defending the country amid the growing threat posed by Russia.

The budget committee's agreement, of course, met with little approval from the opposition parties. The Greens criticized that money from the two special funds was being used to plug some of the holes in the budget. The Greens' budget expert, Sebastian Schäfer called the budget a "new chapter in the never-ending story of shunting around expenditure." And the socialist Left Party said that the rearmament of the Bundeswehr could not be financed by debt in the long run.

AfD wants to cut money for the climate and Ukraine altogether

The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) did not have a good word to say about the budget plans. AfD budget expert Michael Espendiller said that the government was planning "gigantic debts" and setting the wrong priorities. Almost a third of government expenditure would be financed by debt, according to Espendiller. The AfD's proposed solution is to slash German payments to the EU and completely cut funding for measures to curb climate change and support for Ukraine.

The Budget Committee's decision, which was preceded by months of negotiations, must now be approved by the German parliament, the Bundestag.

And there is one remaining hole in the budget that still has to be plugged. The government agreed this week to reduce industrial electricity prices to aid the struggling economy. That could cost taxpayers another five billion euros, according to expert estimates.

But government representatives, nevertheless, clearly looked pleased on Friday that they had finally agreed the budget for the coming year. Even if the day before, the Council of Economic Experts had accused the German government of spending too little money on investment. The panel, dubbed Germany's economic sages, believe that this is the only way for the struggling economy to regain momentum.

This article was originally written in German.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-agrees-on-record-debt-for-2026/a-74752542

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

jewish crooks....

The latest scandal involves $100 million in graft by senior Ukrainian government ministers and Zelensky’s friend, known as “his wallet”. The racketeering and Western complicity account for why this war drags on, with thousands of Ukrainian casualties every week.

The thieves in Kiev are only the scum that float to the surface. The real criminals are the Western so-called leaders who have enabled the entire war racket, a racket that bleeds Western societies and which is no longer concealable.

Even Western media are openly reporting the brazen corruption of the Kiev regime, with many commentators questioning how long the nominal president, Vladimir Zelensky, can remain in office, given the mire of sleaze engulfing him.

The Western media – in hock to their governments’ political agenda – have always played down the rampant corruption in Kiev, even though official U.S. and European auditing officials have at times flagged up the issue as a matter of grave concern. The European Union itself has half-admitted there is an endemic problem by insisting on reforms to clean up corruption as a condition for Ukraine joining the bloc in the future.

Up to now, the audacious racketeering in Kiev has been partly covered up by Western media claiming that it was “Russian propaganda” to smear Ukraine and its NATO sponsors. Well, it turns out that the rank thieving and money laundering in Kiev is not Russian propaganda. It is a fact that even the Western media can no longer ignore.

Still, the cover-up continues somewhat. Incredibly, Western governments and media are continuing to tolerate Zelensky and his cronies crying for more money, instead of demanding his resignation.

Four months ago, Zelensky, who has cancelled elections and made himself president indefinitely, tried to curb Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies by removing their independent powers. That blatant move sparked mass protests, and he had to backtrack quickly amid public outcry.

This week, the same agencies uncovered the biggest corruption scandal yet in Ukraine’s long history of graft. The country’s energy sector was being milked by embezzlement and kickback schemes implicating senior ministers, industry chiefs, and a personal friend and business associate of Zelensky, who has fled overseas.

The justice minister, German Galuschenko, and energy minister Svetlana Grinchuk have had to quit pending an investigation. The alleged mastermind of the embezzlement is Timur Mindich, who fled the country before being arrested. He is a friend and business partner of Zelensky, who has gotten rich on government contracts since Zelensky became president in 2019, after laughably promising voters that he would eradicate Kiev’s notorious corruption.

The latest scheme involved contractors, who are tendering to build protection infrastructure for the country’s power industry, paying massive kickbacks to regime chiefs and business heads.

As the country suffers blackouts from the energy sector being hit by the war with Russia, it transpires that the problem has been greatly exacerbated by the Kiev regime being too busy siphoning off money rather than protecting the industry to serve citizens. The scandal is all the more grotesque as the nation faces mid-winter shortages and its soldiers are being killed amid collapsing frontlines in the east of the country.

Since the NATO proxy war against Russia escalated in February 2022, it is estimated that the United States and the European Union have pumped around $400 billion of Western taxpayers’ money into Ukraine. Western citizens have been bled dry by this war racket, which has enriched the military-industrial complex while paying off the Kiev regime.

President Donald Trump seems to have grown leery of the racket. Under his presidency, Washington has scaled back the money supply. Not so the European elite who keep pumping public money into the cesspit.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pointed out the madness of the EU leadership for insisting on throwing more money into Ukraine in light of the “mafia” under Zelensky. Orbán said his country is refusing to donate any more funds to Ukraine.

No doubt other European states are taking note of the despicable, criminal farce. As EU citizens endure increasing economic hardship from austerity and mounting living costs, their political leadership insists on supporting Ukraine in a futile proxy war.

This war should never have started and could have been avoided if the U.S. and European governments had engaged in diplomatic efforts with Russia. The NATO powers wanted a proxy war, and they, along with the servile media, concocted a fairytale narrative about “brave, noble” Ukraine fighting for supposed Western values against “Russian aggression.”

The conflict has persisted for nearly four years. European economies have been wrecked, and up to 2 million Ukrainian soldiers have been slaughtered – all for the Russophobic fantasy among NATO ideologues to “defeat Russia”.

The war has been a senseless bloodbath that has been sustained by Western lies and extortion of the Western public to prop up a corrupt regime in Kiev.

Now the corruption of the racket has become so putrid, it can no longer be covered up.

It is becoming politically precarious for Euro leaders to make the case for funneling more public funds to a regime that is siphoning off that money.

Hence, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, and her coterie of Russophobic elites, are proposing that billions will be routed to Ukraine not with public funds but with frozen Russian assets. As if that would make it any less criminal.

This week, Von der Leyen appealed to the European Parliament that €140 billion of Russian funds confiscated by the EU should be used as collateral for loans to Ukraine. These insane warmongers don’t know when to stop.

In the end, it’s fitting justice. The criminal proxy war is destroying its Western architects and sponsors. The Kiev cesspit is dragging them down. Good riddance.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/11/14/kiev-corruption-cesspit-dragging-complicit-eu-down-with-it/

 

=======================

 

The EU is seeking concrete commitments from Ukraine in the wake of the bombshell corruption scandal implicating a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky, Politico Europe reported on Friday, citing several people familiar with the matter.

On Monday, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies announced that they had uncovered a $100 million kickback scheme in energy sector contracts involving Zelensky’s close associate and former business partner Timur Mindich, who was tipped off and fled the country, evading arrest. The affair has raised concerns among Kiev’s Western backers, who heavily subsidize the country’s power grid and its protection against Russian airstrikes.

Politico cited an EU official as saying that “the endemic corruption” in Ukraine is “revolting” and “won’t help” its reputation. “It will mean (the European) Commission will surely have to reassess how it spends”funds on Ukraine’s energy sector, the official said, adding that Kiev would have to provide “more attention and transparency in how it spends cash.”

An EU government official told Politico that Zelensky “needs to comfort everyone … with a plan on how to fix corruption.” A former senior Ukrainian official said he expected the EU to make aid more conditional on reforms, but argued that “the overall taboo on criticizing Ukraine in public will hold.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told Zelensky over the phone this week that Berlin expected Ukraine to “press ahead with anti-corruption measures and reforms.”

The scandal has led to the resignation of two government ministers and damaged Zelensky’s image at home and abroad, especially because he won the 2019 presidential election on an anti-corruption platform.

He already faced a backlash over the summer when he tried to restrict the independence of the two leading anti-corruption bodies, NABU and SAPO, only to relent following protests in Kiev.

On Thursday, Zelensky imposed sanctions on Mindich and his business partner Aleksandr Zukerman, both of whom hold Israeli passports.

https://www.rt.com/russia/627812-ukraine-eu-corruption-scandal/

 

==================

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.