German leader gathers employers, unions to tackle inflation

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has gathered top employer and labor union representatives at his Berlin office to seek ways of addressing the impact of rising prices while preventing a spiral of inflation in Europe’s biggest economy. The government billed Monday’s meeting as the first in a series aimed at finding a broad alliance for solutions as Germany’s annual inflation rate stands at 7.6% — close to a half-century high. Scholz’s spokesman said that “we will have to have results in the fall,” but didn’t specify when exactly. In Germany, wage deals are typically hammered out in negotiations between employers’ organizations and unions that cover a whole industrial sector.