Germany achieved balanced federal budget in 2014: sources
"The good news is that this is not the result of further efforts by the government to consolidate the budget but of the savings from low interest rates and of higher tax revenues," said Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform in London.
"This means that the German budget would allow for more spending," he said, but added the extra spending was unlikely to be sufficient to make a real difference to the euro zone.