German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said yesterday that the current economic problems in Germany will not be solved anytime soon.

“Today’s crisis will not end in the next few weeks. We must be prepared that the situation will not change in the foreseeable future. In other words, we are dealing with a historic challenge,” Bloomberg quotes him as saying.

At the same time, he compared the current difficulties with the situation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Yesterday, Scholz held talks with representatives of the Bundesbank, employers and trade unions on the issue of reducing the cost of inflation for ordinary citizens of the country. After the consultations, the Chancellor announced that the aim of this dialog is to develop a set of measures to combat inflation in the coming weeks.

The day before, Scholz warned that rising prices could have an “explosive” effect on German society, deepening the contradictions between different segments of the population. At the same time, the Chancellor, Bloomberg recalls, calls the main reason for the jump in inflation in Germany the situation around Ukraine and related to the pandemic COVID-19 disruptions in international supply channels of goods.

According to Bloomberg, the authorities’ policy allowed to reduce the inflation rate in Germany from 8.7% in May to 8.2% in June, although these figures do not fully take into account the increased cost of energy. Earlier in June, the German government activated the second phase of its three-phase emergency action plan for gas supply: it suggests, among other things, that energy suppliers may shift the burden of rising prices to consumers. Officials warned that the corresponding bills for consumers could rise two to three times.