Dhe extraordinarily strong price increase continues. In April, the inflation rate in Germany reached 7.4 percent, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Thursday after an initial estimate. It was 7.3 percent in March and 5.1 percent in February.
Inflation rates of more than 7 percent were last seen in Germany around 40 years ago. At 7.4 percent, inflation in the European Monetary Union has even reached its highest level since it was founded.
There has been a notable change since March. Compared to the previous year, energy prices are no longer rising quite as sharply, and in some cases they are even falling slightly compared to the previous month. In return, the prices for food are increasing all the more. Above all, those that are affected in some way by the Ukraine war, such as vegetable oil and products made from grain, such as bread. In both cases, the Ukraine was one of the important producing countries.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner was concerned about the high inflation. “It’s a burden for a lot of people,” says Lindner. Such a high rate of inflation endangers the stability of the economy and is at the expense of investments, said the FDP chairman on Thursday in Berlin. “A deep crisis can develop from such an economic situation.” That is why the federal government is already relieving companies and private households. He also demanded that Germany must get away from the loose financial policy. The debt brake anchored in the Basic Law must be complied with again in 2023. Priorities should then be set in the budget. Above all, this means that the planned projects from the traffic light coalition agreement must be put into a sequence for implementation.
The economist Carl Christian von Weizsäcker even thinks it is possible that the officially measured inflation in the food sector is still an understatement, because the shelves in the supermarkets for some of the foods particularly affected by the war were empty at times, making price collection more difficult.
Some energy prices even fall compared to March
At the petrol stations, prices were not quite as high as they were around March 10th. The price for Super E10 fell on average from 2.20 euros to 1.96 euros per liter, while diesel fell from 2.31 euros to 2.02 euros per liter. Nevertheless, these are still extraordinarily high prices in historical comparison and also in comparison to the previous year. The price of crude oil, which had soared to almost $130 a barrel (159 liter barrels) after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, has also calmed down somewhat and most recently stood at $105. Again and again, however, news from the war and the sanctions can drive him up.
The state statistical offices have published slightly more detailed figures on the price development of individual products. According to economist Holger Schmieding, the figures for North Rhine-Westphalia, which is mostly quite representative, show that the sharp rise in the price of food and, to a lesser extent, of package holidays more than offset the drop in oil prices from their peak in March from the Hamburg banking house Berenberg.