At the same time, he gave the all clear and ruled out a global banking crisis as in 2008/2009. According to him, the European supervisory authorities were capable of acting, and the local banks were equipped with robust capital and liquidity buffers. The events were not comparable. At that time, there had been systemic risks due to risky transactions with subprime loans; in the meantime, the problems at banks were caused primarily by the interest rate turnaround, the State Secretary explained. Looking back at the Spring Meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, Toncar saw fighting inflation as the most urgent task. There were debt problems in individual countries, and low-income countries were particularly affected. In view of the low growth, the idea of structural reforms had to be reconsidered. For the Ministry of Finance, the meeting confirmed its commitment to readjust public budgets. In the long run, the state was not able to spend more money than it received from the citizens. At the same time, it had to take care to regenerate economic growth. According to the State Secretary, the state was expected to collect more than one trillion euros in the coming year. Still, the money was not enough to fund the federal government’s legal obligations. At the present time, additional spending was out of the question. “I advise against looking for easy solutions like tax increases,” Toncar said. That would be economically fatal. Toncar clearly rejected the current discussion about wealth tax and inheritance tax. “This is not an option for the FDP,” he stated unequivocally, and he also ruled out tax increases and a circumvention of the debt brake.

Impressions