By Maria Martinez

BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany is using some of the financial firepower created by its taboo-busting fiscal reforms to prop up day-to-day spending rather than directing it all towards additional infrastructure to make the country fitter for the future.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s reform of Germany’s debt brake and the creation of a huge off-budget infrastructure fund were billed as unleashing hundreds of billions of euros of investment to revitalise the economy and boost its military.

A Germany spending rule mandates that 10% of the core budget should be for long-term investment and any projects financed by the infrastructure fund were supposed to be on top of that.

However, scrutiny of the 2025 budget conducted by think tanks and opposition parties, and corroborated by Re

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