Abolition of state benefits
Bavaria criticizes forced transfer payments to church
24.08.2024, 13:22
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Hundreds of thousands of people are leaving the church. Despite this, the federal states pay a state contribution of 550 million euros every year. The traffic light coalition wants to end this expensive practice. The states are against it. They fear even greater burdens.
The Bavarian state government has strongly criticized the traffic light coalition’s plans to end state payments to the churches. The coalition wants to force a law with budgetary dimensions on the states, which would burden the federal states for decades, said State Chancellery Chief Florian Herrmann. “Such a pharisaical plan not only puts the axe to the cultural sovereignty of the states, but to everything that makes the churches a pillar of our social system, such as kindergartens, clinics or old people’s homes,” said Herrmann. The traffic light coalition apparently wants to push through its socio-political agenda “in the final meters of its existence.”
The churches in Germany receive state payments for the expropriation of German churches and monasteries at the beginning of the 19th century as part of secularization. Except for Hamburg and Bremen, all federal states therefore pay an annual sum to the Catholic and Protestant churches. Most recently, the total nationwide was around 550 million euros per year. According to the budget, Bavaria will contribute 80 million euros to the Catholic church and 26 million to the Protestant church – plus building costs of 28 million euros for both denominations, according to the Ministry of Culture.
The traffic light coalition wants to present a bill for the long-term abolition of state payments to the churches in the autumn, although the federal states reject the project. The reform is to be designed in such a way that the Bundesrat does not have to agree. “The blocking attitude of the states unfortunately forces the coalition to go down this path,” said FDP politician Sandra Bubendorfer-Licht.
Disentangling church and state
Because the money comes from tax revenue and therefore from all taxpayers, even those who do not belong to a religious community have to pay. This group is growing from year to year, with hundreds of thousands leaving the church every year. The traffic light government therefore wants to pay the churches and thus disentangle church and state.
However, the states would have to raise the transfer fee – and there is clear resistance here. Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil has already stressed that the states are “very united” in their rejection. “I can only advise against pursuing these plans,” he told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. The budget situation in many states is so strained that transfer payments to the churches are simply not possible in the foreseeable future.