Double-digit billions?
Traffic light is also threatened with a major budget hole in 2025
January 25, 2024, 11:59 p.m
The budget for the current year is almost finished, and the federal government apparently has the next big task ahead of it: According to a report, by 2025 Finance Minister Christian Lindner could have to raise a double-digit billion sum.
According to a media report, the federal government could face a major budget hole in the coming year. Like that “Handelsblatt” According to government sources, it is already becoming apparent that the gap in the 2025 budget will be at least 13 billion euros – but this value is only the lower limit.
“The budget gap will be well into the double digits,” the paper quoted a government representative as saying. The Union faction’s chief budget officer, Christian Haase, said a week ago that he expected savings of around 36 billion euros for 2025. It is still unclear exactly how big the gap will be, but some items are already clear.
According to “Handelsblatt”, the traffic light has already planned a budget gap of five billion euros. In addition, six billion euros would come from a reserve planned for 2025, which the federal government is already using for the current budget.
Furthermore, the Karlsruhe judgment continues to have an impact. According to the report, the traffic light now also has to pay interest expenses for the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF) and flood aid from the Ahr Valley from the normal budget. Both together cost a total of five billion euros. Funds from the Federal Employment Agency would also not be allocated to the regular budget due to legal concerns – a gap of 1.5 billion euros. The total of 17.5 billion euros is offset by savings of around five billion euros that have already been agreed. This results in the lower limit of 12.5 billion euros.
The paper claims to have learned from a government representative that it won’t stay that way: Chancellor Olaf Scholz, FDP Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Green Party Economics Minister Robert Habeck also agreed in December to close the gaps in the climate policy created by the Karlsruhe ruling. and Transformation Fund (KTF) with grants from the regular budget. It is still unclear how much money will flow to which project.
Nothing to distribute, no time
After the Federal Constitutional Court had already shaken up the budget planning for the current year, there could also be some distribution battles within the government for 2025. As the “Handelsblatt” further reports, the federal government is planning to spend 452 billion euros next year – that would be around 25 billion euros less than this year. The Budget Committee approved the current budget last week: with new debt of around 39 billion euros and expenditure of 476.8 billion euros – in compliance with the debt brake. The resolution in the Bundestag is still missing.
For the coming year, the traffic light government will also forego the usual benchmark procedure, several government representatives have confirmed this. At the beginning of the year, the Federal Ministry of Finance usually discusses the key figures for the budget with the other ministries – including how much each minister is allowed to spend. According to the Ministry of Finance, these figures then determine the “budgetary policy direction”. The key figures are decided by the cabinet in the spring and then form the basis for budget planning in the summer.
But this year the budget planning is going differently, the paper continues. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, the ministry is still busy planning for the current year, and on the other hand, there is simply nothing to distribute. Instead, Finance Minister Lindner should plan to prescribe “expenditure caps, so to speak, as benchmarks” to the ministries, which are based on the financial planning from the previous year, it is said.