updates
dispute over funding
Scholz puts pressure on basic child security
07/03/2023, 8:40 p.m
The Greens want to introduce basic child security, which should combine previous services. But the project is not progressing because of the dispute over funding. Chancellor Scholz is now demanding speed.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to pave the way for the introduction of basic child security. In a letter available to the German Press Agency to Family Minister Lisa Paus from the Greens, it says that a draft agreed within the federal government should be available by the end of August. Paus’ ministry should now quickly develop the new draft law along the key points available or supplement it with missing regulations.
With regard to the improvements in performance intended with the introduction of basic child security, SPD politician Scholz asks the minister to work out alternatives – including one that only includes the immediate child supplement, as well as various others that recalculate the “socio-cultural subsistence level” for children. The same applies to the lump sum of the education and participation package.
It also says that the departmental coordination should be initiated promptly – so that the cabinet can deal with it at the end of August. The basic security should bring together services such as child benefit, child citizenship benefit, child allowance and those from the so-called education and participation package.
The budget is two billion
In a statement, Paus welcomed the fact that the chancellor had “clarified the basic child security with his decision”. The basic child security will “come as an important joint socio-political reform of the federal government”. Scholz “made it clear that it must be an effective service that actually supports children at risk of poverty and their families and contains improvements in performance and that reaches more children than today through modern, digital administration”. She assumes that “all departments are now working constructively on the preparation of the draft law, so that there will be no further delay in introducing it in 2025,” she said. Paus has repeatedly called for basic child security that includes performance improvements and is therefore more than an administrative reform.
According to a media report, the Greens had demanded basic commitments to basic child security from Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the FDP before the cabinet decision on the 2024 federal budget planned for Wednesday. In the government draft for the financial plan, 2 billion euros are initially estimated for basic child security from 2025. That is significantly less than the Greens are demanding.
The leader of the Greens parliamentary group, Katharina Dröge, is confident in “ntv Frühstart” that the traffic light coalition will settle the dispute over the financing of basic child security that has been going on for months. “We are in very good talks about the structure of basic child security in the federal government,” she said. “I’m quite sure it will come and it will also be designed in such a way that we can then agree on improving performance for poorer families.