Germany's Finance Ministry affirmed today its plans for austerity, saying a pickup in this year's tax revenues and earnings from a big sale of radio frequencies did not alter the urgency, dpa reported. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who was in South Korea for a meeting of the Group of 20 nations, affirmed the cuts programme through his spokesman in Berlin at a news conference. "The finance minister has said before that he won't be using any extra wiggle room which may arise to lighten up the pressure to consolidate," said the spokesman, Martin Kreienbaum, referring to efforts to end waste in the budget. Schaeuble has hitched a ride on the wave of budget cutting around Europe to push his long-term project to balance the budget. Germany has amended its constitution, capping deficits from 2016 onwards. Aides have said that jobs growth, rising tax revenues, falling interest rates and the proceeds from an auction of radio frequencies to mobile phone companies might reduce the 2010 net borrowing requirement from 80 billion to 70 billion euros (96 to 84 billion dollars). On top of these were temporary effects, there have been signs that the underlying German fiscal deficit is receding as regional governments slash spending. Berlin is insisting that 10 billion euros must be pared off the underlying deficit every year till 2016.
