Germany’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday gave the ‘green light’ to Berlin’s participation in the European Union (EU) coronavirus reconstruction fund after rejecting two appeals of unconstitutionality against the corresponding law passed by Parliament last year.
The reconstruction program, dubbed ‘Next Generation EU’, is intended to help EU states recover from the pandemic and involves the European Commission borrowing on a large scale. The total fund amounts to 750 billion euros at 2018 prices.
The largest sums are earmarked for particularly hard-hit countries such as Italy and Spain. Germany expects to receive almost 26 billion euros in grants for areas such as hydrogen energy research, climate-friendly transport and a more digitized education system.
According to the Federal Court of Audit, Germany is the largest net contributor to the fund, with an expected total of about 65 billion euros, German news agency DPA reported. The authority had warned of risks to the federal budget.
