Germany is at last waking up to the what has been clear to outsiders for the past year or so, that there is going to be no quick fix to the recession it is facing and that it will be long and grinding: this week the BDI industrial federation admitted that the downturn could develop into Germany’s worst recession since the end of World War II, saying that the western German economy will continue to decline, and the fall will be deeper than previously thought, so that in important sectors such as the capital goods industry the downturn will represent a new post-war record; the body blames weak foreign demand for German goods, the now over-valued mark and rising costs for German industry and now admits it is the result of structural problems that will have long-term economic effects.
