Economic Policy in 2026: What Next for the Economy, Industry and the Budget?

Germany, like Europe as a whole, is currently facing considerable economic, political and social challenges. Technological structural changes in production and consumption, demographic change and developments in employment on the one hand and geopolitical tensions and uncertainties on the other, are having a profound impact on the European economic area.

In this context, Achim Truger presents the 2025 annual report of the German Council of Economic Experts, of which he is a member. The five-member Council combines outstanding economic expertise and acts as an independent and critical advisor to the German government on economic issues. The analysis of the investment offensive for infrastructure and climate neutrality, particularly with regard to its growth impulses and structural change, as well as the effects of distribution effects and reforms at EU level, are not only of central importance for the German economy. They also shape the economic framework conditions for Austria, the implications of which will then be discussed at a high-level panel, an "informal Austrian Council of Economic Experts".

Achim Truger, member of the Council of Economic Experts and professor of socioeconomics at the University of Duisburg-Essen, will present the key findings and recommendations from the annual report.

He will then be joined in a discussion by:

Markus Marterbauer (Federal Minister of Finance)

Gabriel Felbermayr (WIFO Director)

Helene Schuberth (Federal Managing Director of the Austrian Trade Union Federation)

Matthias Schnetzer (Chief Economist of the Vienna Chamber of Labour)