"We can imagine a package totalling around 1% of the EU's gross domestic product," Ulrich Wilhelm, a government spokesman, told the Financial Times Deutschland.
But Wilhelm insisted that any EU package should take into consideration plans already passed by EU member states, including the one currently being adopted in the Bundestag (German Parliament).
An EU-wide stimulus plan is currently being drafted by the European Commission and is due to be unveiled next Wednesday (26 November). But details were unclear at this stage, with spokesman Johannes Laitenberger saying it was "too early to speculate about the size or detail of the recommendations" (EurActiv 20/11/08).
A "political decision" on the figure is expected to be taken by EU heads of state and government at a summit in Brussels on 11-12 December.
A couple of weeks ago, Merkel unveiled a plan worth €32 billion spread over two years, in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure projects and soft corporate loans. But pressure has mounted on the chancellor in recent days to do more, after official figures last week showed the country had entered a recession (EurActiv 14/11/08).
According to some critics, the healthy state of German public finances allows the country to be more ambitious. Ewald Nowotny, governor of the Austrian Central Bank, told the Financial Times that "there is really a lot of room for manoeuvre," saying the German stimulus package could be easily brought up to 2% of GDP.
In earlier declarations, Michael Glos, the German economy minister, said the EU package would involve contributions by member states of about 1% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Meanwhile, European Socialists warned against giving presents to the rich. "After the G20 and EU summits there is no debate on whether or not to invest in fiscal stimulus to counter the recession: every government is planning its investments," said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists. "Today the real debate is the scale of the investment and who benefits," he added.
"We Social Democrats have a warning: beware conservatives presenting tax cuts for the rich as a stimulus package. Ordinary people must not pay the price of a recession caused by the greed and irresponsibility of over-paid financial managers."
