Germany’s Schaeuble Urges Fix for ‘Huge’ Infrastructure Problems

(Bloomberg) -- Wolfgang Schaeuble, president of Germany’s lower house of parliament and former finance minister, warned of “huge problems” in infrastructure and a lack of investment in education as reforms pile up.

“Prosperity causes inertia,” Schaeuble told WirtschaftsWoche in an interview. “It is urgently necessary that we make faster progress” in investing in physical and digital infrastructure.

Schaeuble, who fell short in an effort to push through a rival to Angela Merkel’s preferred successor as head of the Christian Democratic party in December, complained in the interview about complex planning law as well as a lack of personnel to design and implement public projects.

Meanwhile, schools and universities need more support. “That’s the future -- and they can never be over-financed,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Reiter in Berlin at creiter2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Tom Lavell

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