{"id":426307,"date":"2025-05-09T15:24:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T13:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/09\/germania-meno-festivita-difesa-ifo-festa\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T17:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:38:10","slug":"germany-fewer-holidays-for-more-defence-ifo-institutes-proposal-reopens-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/09\/germany-fewer-holidays-for-more-defence-ifo-institutes-proposal-reopens-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany, fewer holidays for more defence? Ifo Institute’s proposal reopens debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – In his editorial<\/a> published today (May 9), Clemens Fuest<\/strong>, president of the ifo Institute<\/strong>, revives a provocative proposal: abolish a public holiday <\/strong>in Germany<\/strong>. The reason? To increase the availability of work to address the country’s strategic challenges, foremost among them the strengthening of defence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Fuest starts with an observation: Germany needs to invest more in civilian infrastructure and military security. However, even if fiscal constraints were eased, allowing the government to finance spending through loans<\/a>, a more structural and pressing issue would remain: the shortage of available manpower<\/strong>. According to Fuest, increasing government spending<\/strong> on defence and infrastructure in a context of full employment would risk causing a shift of resources away from other sectors. The effect?\u00a0Higher wages<\/strong>\u00a0in construction and the defence apparatus, and a flight of workers from areas already under pressure, such as care and health care.<\/span>\u00a0The result would be a deterioration in the delivery of essential services, a general rise in prices, and a loss of welfare for large sections of the population.<\/p>\n

Hence, the proposal: to abolish a public holiday to\u00a0<\/span>increase the amount of work<\/strong>\u00a0available throughout the year, a solution that has already found a precedent in\u00a0<\/span>Denmark<\/strong>, which, to meet the same need,\u00a0<\/span>abolished<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 the “Store Bededag,” a minor Easter holiday.<\/span>\u00a0“This is not a solving measure<\/strong>,” Fuest admits. Still, it would be a concrete step to expand the labour supply and contribute directly to Germany’s productive capacity at a time when every resource counts. The ifo Institute estimates that such a move would generate an output of at least \u20ac8 billion a year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The focus on defence is not accidental. The geopolitical context, marked by new tensions and increasing instability at European borders<\/strong>, has also led Germany to reconsider its security role and commitments. This entails not only more spending, but also a real capacity for implementation: without qualified personnel, even the most ambitious allocations cannot translate into concrete results. Unlike more complex solutions such as a tax reform or a rethinking of the pension system, the abolition of a holiday can be implemented relatively quickly and with\u00a0immediate effects<\/strong>. Moreover, it would have symbolic value: sending a message to the population and European partners that Germany is\u00a0willing to make sacrifices<\/strong> to strengthen its resilience, including on the military front.<\/p>\n

Clemens Fuest asks a fundamental question: if security and modernisation of the country are real priorities, are we willing to work an extra day a year to support them? The debate is open.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One less holiday would free up \u20ac8 billion each year without hurting employment, wages, and inflation, in a Germany that aims to strengthen defence and security quickly. This is the idea revived by Clemens Fuest, head of Germany’s ifo research centre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7883,"featured_media":426294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809],"tags":[27336,26267,26454,31191,28478,26444],"class_list":["post-426307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","tag-economy-2-en","tag-holidays-en","tag-infrastructure-en","tag-work-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426307"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426322,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426307\/revisions\/426322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}