(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, 21 AGO - Germany must take on yet more debt in 2021 to lessen the impact of the coronavirus on the economy, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said Friday. "Next year we will continue to be forced to suspend the debt rule and spend considerable funds to protect the health of citizens and stabilise the economy," Scholz said in an interview with the Funke media group, referring to Germany's cherished policy of keeping a strictly balanced budget. Scholz already plans to borrow around 218 billion euros ($258 billion) this year to help pay for a huge rescue package, which he previously described as a big "bazooka", to steer the country through the coronavirus-induced downturn. That decision marked a momentous change in the attitude to state borrowing in a country that amended its constitution in 2009 to rein in spending with a so-called debt brake. The rule, introduced at the height of the financial crisis, bans Berlin from taking on more than the equivalent of 0.35 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in new debt in any one year in normal times (ANSA-AFP).