GERMANY’S ECONOMY AMID INCREASING ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CHALLENGES
October 3 this year Germany celebrated the 32nd anniversary of the unification of the two German states. Three decades after the historic events of 1990, the state faced a number of extremely difficult economic and political problems, which escalated significantly in the fall of 2022. The large-scale measures taken in the first half of the year to support business and the population turned out to be insufficient to solve them. Inflation in September reached 10%, the German economy was on the verge of recession. In autumn, the government was forced to nationalize the leading gas importer Uniper SE, provide state support to the energy company Verbundnetz Gas AG, cancel the planned special surcharge on the price of gas, extend the operation of the nuclear power plant, accept a third aid package, and create a special economic fund of 200 billion euros, which caused a sharp criticism of the leadership of a number of EU countries. The development and discussion of anti-crisis tools reflected the existing disagreements and conflict potential of the «traffic light» coalition. Against this background, there was a further aggravation of German-Russian relations in the oil and gas sector. The author analyzes the content and possible effectiveness of the autumn anti-crisis measures of the government, pays special attention to state intervention in the activities of the main players in the German energy market.