In Berlin, the large 500 billion euro plan designed to revive infrastructure, climate transition, and the economy is proceeding, at least for now, at a slower pace than imagined by the government. The first official monitoring of the special fund shows that in 2025 approximately 24 billion euros were actually spent, compared to the 37.2 billion planned.
A significant difference, almost one third less than initial expectations, which emerges from the report prepared by the Ministry of Finance for the Bundestag Budget Committee. A document destined to also have political consequences, as it concerns one of the flagship projects of the German economic strategy.
INVESTMENTS BELOW EXPECTATIONS
The special fund was created after the decision of the Bundestag and Bundesrat to authorize new public debt to finance additional investments. The total allocation amounts to 500 billion euros distributed over twelve years. The largest share, 300 billion, is reserved for the federal government, another 100 billion goes to Länder and municipalities, while the remaining 100 billion feed the Climate and Transition Fund.
The report indicates several reasons to explain the gap between programmed funds and funds actually used, and most of the responsibility seems to be attributed to peripheral management. Part of the resources allocated to the Länder, in fact, was not transferred during the year. But even at the federal level, spending remained below expectations. The overall utilization rate stood at 74%. According to the ministry, factors affecting this included the long provisional budget management period following the federal elections and the fact that the new financial instrument only came into concrete operation in the autumn.
The Ministry of Finance, however, urges not to read these numbers exclusively in a negative light, as much of the German press has done. The report speaks of an “overall positive start” and highlights initial tangible effects especially in housing construction and digitization projects. Implementation is slower, however, in the energy, research, and transport infrastructure sectors.
AN ADMINISTRATIVE APPARATUS NOT SO EFFICIENT
To monitor the program’s progress, the ministry introduced a new control system that measures not only the progress of projects but also their effectiveness. It is precisely this indicator that returns a less bright picture than hoped for by the executive. The average value reaches 54%, a percentage the report interprets as “only a partial achievement of the set objectives.”
Even looking at individual sectors, considerable differences emerge. Hospitals and sports infrastructure record the best results, both with an index of 90%. Behind are residential construction, at 66%, and digitization, at 57%. Transport and energy infrastructure stop respectively at 52% and 45%. Regarding schools, kindergartens, and care facilities, monitoring does not yet show measurable progress because many programs will only start this year.
The slowdown does not only concern the realization of works. Even procedurally, results remain modest. Of the 109 intermediate milestones planned for 2026, only 26 had been completed by the end of May. A figure that strengthens doubts about the administrative apparatus’s ability to quickly transform allocated resources into operational projects.
ECONOMISTS’ CRITICISMS
The publication of the report comes as the coalition government between CDU/CSU and SPD faces growing pressure on the economic front. Criticism of the management of the special fund is not new. In recent months, both the Ifo Institute in Munich and the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) in Cologne have argued that a significant part of the resources was used more to cover budget needs than to finance truly additional investments.
Similar doubts also come from the opposition, primarily the Greens, whose support was decisive in achieving the qualified majority necessary for the plan’s approval. According to the Green party, “more effective management of the funds could have generated more substantial effects on economic growth.”
THE GOVERNMENT DEFENDS THE PLAN
The executive continues to defend the project by emphasizing its cyclical impact. Estimates from the Ministry of Finance indicate that the spending made so far would have increased gross domestic product by about half a percentage point compared to a scenario without the special fund. A contribution considered significant in a still fragile growth phase. After the economic consequences of the war in Iran, Berlin has revised its forecasts downward and now estimates growth of 0.5% for this year and 0.9% in 2027.
For this reason, the report does not represent only a technical verification of the use of public resources – notes Handelsblatt in its analysis – but is also a snapshot of the progress of the government’s economic strategy. On one hand, concrete signs of investment activation emerge; on the other, the gap between announced objectives and what has been achieved so far remains evident. And it is precisely this gap that continues to fuel political debate around Germany’s largest public investment program in recent decades.
