By Maria Martinez
BERLIN, March 17 (Reuters) - Germany's special fund for infrastructure has largely failed to generate additional investment one year after its approval, the German Economic Institute (IW) said in a study seen by Reuters on Tuesday. IW said 86% of the money used in the past year was diverted from its intended purpose. "The conservatives and Social Democrats had the chance to clear the investment backlog. So far, they have not used it," IW researcher Tobias Hentze said. According to the study,
the German government's actual investment spending, including the fund and excluding financial transactions, totalled about 71 billion euros ($81.52 billion) in 2025, up just 2 billion euros from 2024 in nominal terms. IW said another 12 billion euros from the fund substituted for core budget spending, describing the shift as a budgetary reshuffle, citing hospital "transformation costs" booked as investment even though they covered operating expenses. Berlin had planned to spend 19 billion euros from the fund in 2025, but only about three quarters of that was actually disbursed, the study said. Plans also earmarked 10 billion euros for the Climate and Transformation Fund and 8.3 billion euros for Germany's states, but actual investment by the climate fund fell 8.3 billion euros short of target and dropped below 2024 levels, while funding for the states was delayed until 2026 for administrative reasons.
($1 = 0.8709 euros)
(Reporting by Rene Wagner and Maria Martinez, Editing by Friederike Heine)
