Deutsche Bundesbank

The Bundesbank has said the latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic risked pushing the German economy - Europe's largest - into a technical recession before staging a recovery from the second quarter.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is drafting contingency plans to carry out its multi-trillion bond-buying program without the Bundesbank in case Germany's top court forces the main participant in the scheme to quit, four sources told Reuters.

A legal wrangle over the European Central Bank's bond-purchasing program will help focus minds on the need for closer European integration, Greek central bank chief Yannis Stournaras said on Tuesday.

The European Union's top court said on Friday it alone has the power to decide whether EU bodies are breaching the bloc's rules, in a rebuke to Germany's highest court, which this week rejected its judgment approving the ECB's trillion-euro bond purchases.

The European Central Bank pushed back on Thursday at a German court's attempt to curb its power to buy government bonds, saying it was "more determined than ever" to pull the eurozone out of its worst economic crisis in nearly a century.

Germany's highest court on Tuesday gave the European Central Bank (ECB) three months to justify bond purchases under its flagship stimulus program or lose the Bundesbank as a participant, raising questions about both the scheme and the euro's future.

€ 13 billion and € 500 million is Germany's budget surplus for 2019, the Berlin Finance Ministry announced, news agencies said.

The unexpectedly large positive balance is due to higher tax revenues, lower interest rates on public debt and delays in infrastructure projects.

There was a 0.1% decline in GDP in the second quarter of this year.

The German economy will enter a recession in the third quarter due to the "sharp" decline in industrial production due to tensions in international markets, Bundesbank warned.

Yahoo News - Germany has earned some 2.9 billion euros ($3.5 billion) since 2010 on Greek debt bought to help the struggling country, a government report seen by AFP showed Thursday.

"Contrary to all the rightwing myths, Germany profited massively from the crisis in Greece," said Sven-Christian Kindler, a Greens party MP whose question to the finance ministry uncovered the figure.

The European Central Bank could end its bond purchases this year if the economic upswing continues, taking another step on a long road to unwinding unconventional stimulus, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said on Tuesday.