Just hours after the traffic light agreement, the Bundestag discussed a budget draft, the details of which are only slowly leaking out. The Chancellor hardly says anything about it. CDU leader Merz exchanges blows with SPD leader Esken.
It couldn’t have been much tighter. On Wednesday morning, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Christian Lindner reached the final agreement during their unscheduled budget discussions – just early enough to announce it before the start of the last Bundestag session this year.
Fittingly, a government statement from the Chancellor was scheduled for this Wednesday anyway. Reason: the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. It is not unusual to use such appearances before the German Bundestag for other topics. It is all the more surprising that Scholz does not do this: he does not put the budget for the coming year at the center of his speech.
He talks about the war in Ukraine, is “deeply impressed” by Kiev’s army, but also describes the situation as threatening. Russian arms production is in full swing. “Putin is still determined to bring Ukraine to its knees militarily. And he is counting on international support to wane. The danger that this calculation could come to fruition cannot be dismissed – unfortunately.”
Not a word about Taurus
Scholz cites the dispute in the USA and the Hungarian blockade of the EU budget as reasons for this. He does not talk about his own refusal to deliver Taurus to Ukraine. This is done by Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, but also by speakers from the FDP and the Greens, who expressly point out that it is not their parties’ fault.
Merz says that under the current circumstances, Ukraine has “absolutely no chance” of winning the war. That also has something to do with the federal government’s hesitation. Scholz is deceiving the public and “lacks any evidence” as to why he does not want to supply Ukraine with Taurus medium-range missiles, said Merz, with an indirect reference to the criticism of CDU defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter.
The debt brake is to be relaxed for the Ahr Valley
Scholz talks about the Ukraine war in his speech on German budget policy. During his joint appearance with Habeck and Lindner, the Chancellor had already made it clear that the traffic light only wanted to relax the debt brake for the 2.7 billion euros planned for 2024 for the reconstruction of the Ahr Valley, which was hit by the flood disaster. However, it reserves the right to do this to support Ukraine if the war makes this necessary. This, according to the argument, would be one of the “extraordinary emergency situations that are beyond the state’s control” described in Article 115 of the Basic Law – and which enable the debt brake to be suspended.
During his appearance in the Chancellery, Scholz put it this way: “Should the situation worsen as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine, for example because the situation on the front is deteriorating, because other supporters are reducing their aid to Ukraine or because the threat to Germany and Europe continues increases, we will have to react to it. In order to be prepared, we have already agreed with each other that in such a situation – which today no one knows whether it will occur or not – to propose a resolution to the Bundestag that exceeds the limit, as Article 115 of the Basic Law does in emergency situations.”
Scholz repeats these sentences almost word for word in the Bundestag. The Union doesn’t buy that this is just a vague prospect. It’s the Chancellor’s “usual trickery,” says Merz: The traffic light will now spend the money from the climate and transformation fund as well as on “all the transfer payments,” “and then in the middle of the year you’ll tell us: Well, “It was all unforeseen, what was coming to us in Ukraine, and now we have to review the budget decisions again.”
Infight with Esken
Provoked by heckling from SPD leader Saskia Esken, Merz gets involved in an infight with her. At the weekend, Esken said at the SPD party conference that the CDU and CSU were “rushing against the traffic lights in unison with the AfD.” Merz quotes the Social Democrat with this statement, clearly outraged: “You are falling below every permissible level of personal degradation here!” When the SPD parliamentary group responded to Esken’s quote with applause, Merz was practically foaming at the mouth. This is a “low point in the political culture of this house”.
Merz then accuses the Chancellor of having “crashingly failed” with his plan to reform asylum legislation. He tells of a meeting with Scholz in the Chancellery on October 13th. There Scholz “proudly” handed him the draft for the Return Improvement Act. “You read it yourself, you said, and it was one of the best crafted works of your coalition.” According to reports, this law will not come until next year at the earliest. “How long do you actually want to let large parts of your coalition, especially the Greens, dance on your nose?” complains the opposition leader and calls on Scholz to introduce the bill unchanged into the Bundestag and to combine it with a vote of confidence.
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt accuses the traffic light of wanting to “probably lower” the debt brake. He quotes what Habeck had written in the Green Party’s parliamentary group chat early that morning, according to “Spiegel”: The negotiations are finished, the government is still standing. According to Dobrindt, the coalition’s unification was all about keeping “the traffic lights in power.” With regard to the planned dismantling of climate-damaging subsidies, he accuses the Liberals of breaking their word: “So far, the FDP has described things like this as tax increases.”
FDP parliamentary group vice-president Christoph Meyer contradicts: “There is no tax increase for the working middle class.” The suspension of the debt brake for the Ahr Valley should only take place “if it is legally possible to find a viable compromise”. That sounded a little different with Scholz. However, the Chancellor had also emphasized that “more in-depth examinations” were still ongoing and that the traffic light would “approach the largest opposition party” and seek their support.
According to the coalition’s plans, the Bundestag should decide on the budget in the first week of the session in 2024. Sequel follows.