Merkel challenger calls for new Marshall Plan in 1st major foreign policy speech
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The man who is challenging Angela Merkel to become chancellor of Germany has called for a new Marshall Plan to revive Europe's ailing economies.
Peer Steinbrueck said in his first major foreign policy speech Tuesday at Berlin's Free University that such a program could be funded in part by new taxes on financial transactions.
He added that the government's insistence on budget austerity in Europe is creating economic stagnation.
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Steinbrueck's Social Democratic Party is trailing Merkel's Christian Democrats in the polls three months before the Sept. 22 general election.
The former finance minister said countries like Greece and Portugal need a massive plan similar to the one that rebuilt Germany after World War II to avoid a "diabolical spiral" toward further joblessness and economic stagnation.