Spending of 40 billion euros
Countries massively criticize the supplementary budget
05/11/2022 2:56 p.m
In the federal states there is clear criticism of the federal relief package to cushion the consequences of the Ukraine war. At a special meeting of the Federal Council on the supplementary budget, Hesse’s Prime Minister Bouffier made it clear that the package would be at the expense of the states.
The federal states are expressing massive criticism of the 2022 supplementary budget with the relief package for the consequences of the Ukraine war and are demanding greater financial participation from the federal government. “The whole thing has such serious flaws that – at least as of today – I cannot recommend approving this federal budget,” said Hesse’s Prime Minister Volker Bouffier at a special session of the Bundesrat.
Bouffier complained that some population groups that are particularly dependent on support received nothing from measures such as the planned energy price flat rate. “Why do the pensioners actually go completely blank?” This also applies to young people such as students who also do not have a large income. “They get nothing. Simply nothing.” The state cannot cushion all the burdens on citizens and the economy that arise from high inflation. But: “If there is any help – then it should actually be for those who need it most.”
Expenditures are funded solely through debt
The 2022 supplementary budget will essentially finance measures intended to mitigate the consequences of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine for people and the economy in Germany. The expenditure of almost 40 billion euros will be financed by new debt alone. The federal government’s new debt will thus increase to a total of 138.9 billion euros this year.
Included are, among other things, a reduction in the energy tax on fuel, a one-off energy price flat rate of 300 euros for all employees, a one-time 100-euro child bonus and the nine-euro ticket for local transport, which is to be available for three months. The federal states calculate that they and the municipalities should bear around 6.8 billion of a total of 11.8 billion euros in costs for the energy price flat rate and the child bonus.
“Whoever orders the music should also pay for it”
Lower Saxony’s Minister of Finance, Reinhold Hilbers, therefore criticized the fact that the federal states and local authorities were “excessively asked to pay” for the financing of the measures. The relief package came from the federal government, the states were not involved at all. “Then it makes sense for the federal government to bear the associated financial burden. Whoever orders the music should also pay for it.” The federal government must “completely finance” the relief measures.
State Secretary for Finance Florian Toncar pointed out that the federal government was relieving the federal states elsewhere in the billions. He also shoulders other burdens such as the planned special fund of 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr. The FDP politician also calculated that the federal government recorded a general government deficit of 143 billion euros last year, but that the federal states and local authorities achieved a surplus of 6.5 billion euros. The relief measures have “in their overall view a very clear, also socio-political orientation,” emphasized Toncar. For example, Bafög recipients would also receive the heating subsidy.