The German government will this year break its all-time deficit record as the brutal economic downturn sends expenditures rocketing and tax revenues plummeting, according to an amended 2009 budget adopted yesterday, writes Bertrand Benoit in Berlin.

The finance ministry said the cabinet of chancellor Angela Merkel had endorsed its third budgetary amendment. The new figures foresee a federal deficit of €47.6bn ($66.3bn, £41.3bn) instead of the €36.9bn originally envisaged.