DOUBTS over Germany's ability to enter European economic and monetary union (EMU) resurfaced yesterday as new unemployment data was seized on by speakers at a jobs "summit" to warn that Germany may yet miss the boat in 1999.
Opening a high-profile two-day jobs conference in Berlin, German Trade Union Federation (DGB) chairman Mr Dieter Schulte, the country's leading union official, said Bonn's current economic policies were at the root of the problem.
Mr Schulte singled out the major tax-cutting reform that Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government is planning as particularly dangerous given the stubbornly high unemployment across the country.
"The complete removal of means tax and the lower corporate taxes, together with increased expenditure linked to greater joblessness and poverty, will lead to a rise in deficits up to the year 2000," Mr Schulte said.
Bonn's official estimate is that its deficit will fall to 2.9 per cent of economic output by year-end, just under the 3 per cent ceiling for monetary union.
Figures released by the German Federal Labour Office earlier showed a fall in unemployment to 4.5 million from February's 4.7 million figure, which had been the highest since 1933. But the fall was mainly seen as a result of milder weather allowing workers in the construction sector back to work, without any real signs of a turnaround in manufacturing and other sectors.
Mr Rudolf Scharping, parliamentary leader of the opposition Social Democrats, told the conference the unemployment data indicated that all the government's budget data for this year were skewed, and he predicted the May tax estimate would show much larger revenue shortfalls than expected.
But German Finance Minister, Mr Theo Waigel, in Berlin for a separate engagement, insisted that current labour market developments would have "no direct influence on the timetable for introducing the euro".
However, he did concede for the first time that average jobless levels in 1997 could be above the government's previous forecast of 4.2 million.
"We cannot rule out that unemployment levels will be higher than stated in the (government's) annual economic report," he told reporters.
