Government expects greater tax revenue in 2027

The German government expects to collect an extra €4.1 billion ($4.6 billion) in taxes next year, according to Finance Ministry calculations released Thursday.

When looking at the federal, state and communal levels, the increase is estimated to be over €10 billion, adding up to a total of €1 trillion paid in taxes in 2027.

However, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said the increased tax revenue would not bring relief to the budget.

Klingbeil said that despite “international crises and uncertainties,” the German government was expecting a “stable trend” in tax revenue for 2026.

“We have responded to these crises. And we are in a robust position,” Klingbeil said. For 2027, the government “will not gain any new fiscal leeway overall, but we also won’t have to close any new gaps.”

He called for continued consolidation to protect future budgets.

Just wait a little longer. It’s a familiar feeling for anyone who’s traveled around Germany by train. 

According to Deutsche Bahn, it’s unlikely that rail travelers in Germany will see any significant improvements to the punctuality issues that plague the network for another few years.

“The knock-on effect will be felt once we have completed the most challenging refurbishment projects,” Phillip Nagl, head of Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB InfraGo, told the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.

One of those major refurbishments is the modernization of the Hamburg-Hanover line, which is scheduled for 2029. Delays and persistent problems have already pushed the schedule back several times.

Richard Lutz, the former head of Deutsche Bahn, claimed in 2024 that the refurbishment of the aging rail network would lead to a steady increase in punctuality. But things have actually gotten worse, with punctuality for long-distance services falling from 64% in 2023 to around 60% in 2025, and this will likely drop again in 2026.

Nagel blamed the delays on outdated infrastructure, with parts of the network breaking down faster than they can be repaired.

Police are investigating a possible arson attack after more than 20 MAN trucks were set on fire on Thursday evening in the Sellerhausen-Stünz neighborhood of Leipzig, in eastern Germany, local media reported.

The fire broke out around 2 a.m. (0000 GMT) with several vehicles being completely destroyed. The initial estimate of the cost of the damage reached seven figures, according to Radio Leipzig.

The Police Center for Countering Extremism and Terrorism from the Saxony criminal investigation bureau will take over further investigations since a political motive for the arson cannot be ruled out.

The fire services were able to bring the flames under control by morning and there were no report of injuries.

A number of German public service websites were back up and running on Thursday morning after a security vulnerability was discovered in the PHP code that is used to run millions of websites around the world.

However, some state government portals, hospitals and universities were still experiencing online disruptions.

The sites had been taken down as a precaution after the vulnerability was discovered and PHP developers urged users to install a new security patch.

Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warned that there was still a threat, especially due to the hackers being able to employ AI to find exploits.

“We consider it likely that there will be widespread exploitation within a few hours of the security updates being released: Attackers can analyze them quickly using AI-powered tools and generate corresponding exploits,” the BSI said while recommending a complete disconnection of websites from the internet as long as security cannot be guaranteed.

Experts warned it could take months to fully secure all government, public and private devices, especially those running on outdated software that cannot be fixed with a simple patch.

There are now 20 known far-right martial art clubs active in Germany, up from around a dozen in June 2024, according to a report from the German government.

The Interior Ministry said there had been a major increase in 2026 in particular. The report came after a parliamentary inquiry by the Greens.

The far right have long used martial arts and fitness to recruit young men into the extremist scene, but the government reported an observed “professionalization of combat skills” among the clubs.

The report said these groups pose threats of violence but no direct confrontations with opposing groups had yet been recorded. It also warned that while it found no evidence of links to similar groups in other countries, this could not be ruled out int he future.

Germany has rapidly increased the amount of battery storage it has available, with the number of battery systems increasing by close to half a million between January and September 2026, the solar industry association BSW-Solar reported.

This year’s new installations mark an increase of 91% over the same period last year and have a combined storage of 8.2 gigawatt-hours.

That is equivalent to the amount of electricity used by the city of Munich in just under half a day.

A large part of the new battery installations have been large-scale battery systems. The number of systems with a capacity of 1 megawatt or more increased from 63 to 220.

Batteries are a key component of the transition to clean energy that requires the storage of electricity to balance out fluctuations. But BSW-Solar pointed out that a much faster expansion is needed to reach Germany’s clean energy goals.

“Battery storage is becoming a driver of growth and efficiency in the energy transition,” BSW-Solar managing director Carsten Körnig said, adding that the technology could help save billions in costs.

Guten Tag from a very autumnal Bonn.

Government and public service websites went dark after a major vulnerability was discovered. Some sites have started coming back online after a PHP patch, but officials have warned that it will take time to confirm that hackers did not take advantage of the problem.

We will also be keeping you up to date on the latest from German politics, especially a day after the far-right AfD set out its plans to reduce the power of the EU.