Schaeuble enigmatic on his stay at the Finance Ministry

The plan of the new coalition government in Germany for new spending of 23 billion euros without tax increases or new borrowing is "ambitious but realistic" as new expenditure will be financed from budget surpluses, the German Finance Minister said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio.

"The priority measures for this legislative period, the next four years, are expected to cost 23 billion euros and we have room for maneuvering if we use the stocks we always have in financial planning as we work carefully," Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

"In recent years we always got along better than our initial planning, the debt was always small and the costs lower than expected, which means that this is a careful, realistic and ambitious project," he added.

Schauble did not want to clarify whether he will remain in his position as Finance Minister in the new formation. The names of the ministers will be announced after the referendum that will be undertaken by the Social Democrats (SPD) among their 470,000 members in order to approve the agreement.