German business is fed up with a government in disarray

Many GERMAN bosses wanted just one thing for Christmas—. The country’s business circles have talked about little else than these “formal funding notices” since November 15th. On that day the federal constitutional court declared that the government’s plan to repurpose €60bn ($66bn) in “emergency” covid-19 credit lines towards infrastructure and the energy transition was unconstitutional. This blew a hole in the coalition government’s spending plans. It also raised concerns among those companies which depend on public support for their investments. Though not that numerous, they are central to the government’s economic vision—and that vision, in turn, matters to German enterprise as a whole.In early December Northvolt, an innovative Swedish battery-maker, received a for a €564m subsidy to construct a €4.5bn factory in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Other companies, including those behind 11 of Germany’s 27 “important projects of common European interest” that have yet to receive a formal funding offer, anxiously awaited their economic sweeteners.