Germany set to increase EV subsidies by €917 million, police investigate after shootings in Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg, older employees take more sick leave and more news on Wednesday November 11th.
Today’s top story: Germany set to increase electric car subsidies by €917 million in 2027
The German government plans to more than double its budget for EV subsidies in 2027, allocating an additional €917 million to the programme amid high demand.
A total of €1.72 billion is now earmarked for next year, up from the €803 million originally planned, according to a Finance Ministry budget proposal document seen by Reuters.
The government says the scheme, introduced in May to help low and middle income households switch to electric cars, has proved more popular than anticipated.
By early October, 100,000 applicants had received the subsidy. The additional funding will come from Germany’s Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF).
The subsidy is available for newly purchased or leased electric cars, some plug-in hybrids and EVs with a range extender.
It applies only to private vehicles registered from January 1st, 2026, with the amount awarded depending on the car type, household income and family size. Eligible buyers can receive up to €6,000.
Starting Thursday, the Bundestag’s Budget Committee will hold a “final adjustment session” to approve the last changes to the 2027 draft budget. The discussions will be based on a proposal from the Finance Ministry, which spans 1,134 pages and details all changes made since the initial draft was approved.
READ ALSO: How much money can you get towards an EV car in Germany?
Investigations launched after shootings in Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg
Two people were injured, one of them seriously, in a shooting in a building in HafenCity, Hamburg, on Tuesday morning.
Police were called to the scene shortly before 9am and deployed special forces to search the building.
The suspected gunman, a 68-year-old man, was later found dead inside the Elbphilharmonie hotel. Preliminary findings suggest he took his own life.
The two shooting victims, a 40-year-old security guard and a 39-year-old woman who lived in the building, were taken to hospital. The woman was seriously injured although on Wednesday police said she was no longer in a critical condition.
Police later identified the suspected gunman as a 68-year-old man from Baden-Württemberg. He is suspected of shooting dead his wife and father-in-law in Eningen unter Achalm, south of Stuttgart, before the Hamburg incident.
An investigation has been launched as police search for motives.
Germany marks St Martin’s Day
People across Germany will mark St Martin’s Day on Wednesday.
Martinstag, as it is known in German, is named after Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier who became a monk after being baptised as an adult. He was eventually made a saint by the Catholic Church for being a kind man who cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm.
In Germany it is traditional for families to make or buy paper lanterns for children, and take part in processions on the street in remembrance of Sankt Martin.
The groups sing songs about the saint and wave their lanterns.
READ ALSO: What is St Martin’s Day and why is it celebrated in Germany?
Older workers in Germany take more sick leave
Older employees in Germany are off work sick for an average of more than 30 days per year, new data shows.
Figures from the Health Ministry, provided in response to an inquiry from The Left Party’s parliamentary group and obtained by the Rheinische Post, show that in 2024 individuals aged 60 to 65 recorded an average of 31.3 days of sick leave.
This is significantly higher than the general average. According to the Federal Statistical Office, employees in Germany were on average on sick leave for just under 15 working days in 2025.
Older employees were most commonly signed off work due to colds or flu-like infections.
The Left Party said the figures highlighted the need for older people to slow down as they reach later stages in life – not work more.
“If the government has its way, a further increase in the standard retirement age will soon push back the point at which workers can start drawing their pensions even further into the future. This completely ignores the reality of life for older workers,” said The Left’s pension policy spokesperson, Sarah Vollath.
READ ALSO: Why do people in Germany take so many sick days?
A person lies in bed with tea and tissues. What are the reasons behind increased sick leave in Germany? Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Philip Dulian
Germany’s Infineon says AI data centre buildout won’t slow
Chip giant Infineon said Tuesday that the rapid buildout of AI data centres would not slow down despite growing resistance in the United States, even as it predicted the backlash would likely spread to other countries.
There has been increased opposition to the environmental and energy costs of the sprawling sites in the United States, with many Democratic winners in the recent midterm elections vowing to put a brake on the projects.
Jochen Hanebeck, chief executive of the German giant that has benefited from making power chips used in the centres, acknowledged in an earnings call the “growing debates about expanding AI infrastructure”.
But he said this was a “rather American-centric topic”.
“Of course the world over there are concerns voiced by people who live in the direct vicinity of AI data centres,” Hanebeck added, but “around the globe there are many regions that are very sparsely populated”.
“I believe that the operators of these data centres and the American hyperscalers will find areas that aren’t necessarily all located in the United States, perhaps also in other countries where AI data centres can be built,” he said.
German government to buy half of tank maker KNDS for €6.6 billion: source
The German government is set to pay €6.64 billion to acquire a 50 percent stake in the French-German defence group KNDS, a parliamentary source told AFP on Tuesday.
An official decision to approve the purchase price is expected to be made by the German parliament’s budget committee on Thursday, the source added, confirming an earlier report in news magazine Der Spiegel.
The move to buy shares in the maker of Leopard tanks and other equipment now held by the Bode-Wegmann family aims to put Berlin “on equal footing” with the French government, which already owns half of KNDS, a German government source told AFP last Thursday, when an “agreement in principle” was struck with the family on the sale.
KNDS, formed in 2015 through the merger of the French state-owned firm Nexter and the family-owned German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, is a major player in the European defence industry and produces the Leclerc and Leopard 2 main battle tanks.
With reporting by AFP and DPA
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
