The coalition still has the goal of adopting the 2024 budget this year, says FDP budget expert Fricke. But the traffic light has apparently given up on the original plan to get through everything before Christmas.
It took a few days for the coalition to arrive in the new reality. It was only a week after the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling on October 15th that the traffic light canceled the so-called adjustment meeting of the budget committee. It had only been postponed after the judge’s ruling. The federal government initially wanted to stick to the schedule for passing the budget for the coming year in the Bundestag at the beginning of December.
There is no longer any talk of this. When traffic light representatives now publicly comment on the schedule for the budget negotiations, they tend to do so cautiously. “It is still possible to decide on the 2024 budget this year,” says FDP budget expert Otto Fricke ntv. “That continues to be the goal of the coalition factions.”
It is unlikely that it will work. According to the “Bild” newspaper, the traffic light has already said goodbye to the plan to get the budget through the Bundestag this year. The SPD in particular had originally put pressure on this. “We want the budget to be passed now in 2023 and then everyone will know at Christmas what it will look like next year,” said SPD leader Lars Klingbeil on ntv at the end of November.
Lindner says it “as a precaution”
The FDP was in less of a hurry right from the start. It is “of course” still possible to pass the budget for 2024 this year, party leader Christian Lindner recently told Bayerischer Rundfunk. “I’m just saying as a precautionary measure: After every federal election, it is usual for the following year’s budget to be decided at the beginning of the year and there is a short phase of so-called provisional budget management.”
There is hardly any insight into the negotiations. What is publicly demanded largely corresponds to the parties’ known catalogues. Negotiations are primarily taking place between Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Lindner. There doesn’t seem to have been a breakthrough: “First we had to analyze the verdict,” Habeck told Anne Will on Sunday. “And now we are trying to compensate for these funds,” he added, referring to the missing billions. “In the discussions we are having, we really try to identify in depth from budget tables or the climate and transformation fund what may come later, what we may no longer want to do or be able to do.”
The coalition has already missed one deadline: in order to approve the 2024 budget at a regular cabinet meeting, the traffic light would have had to reach an agreement by St. Nicholas Day. If there is now an agreement, the decision would only be possible in the so-called circulation procedure, which would not be a problem.
“It takes as long as it takes”
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Wednesday that he was certain that the cabinet decision would be made this year. SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert, however, dampened expectations: in ntv’s “Early Start” he called a solution to the budget crisis before Christmas “sensible”. It is also possible. “But it takes as long as it takes.”
This is also because another ruling from Karlsruhe, won by the Union, obliges the coalition to give the members of the Bundestag enough time to familiarize themselves with the new budget. Because the budget is ultimately not decided by the federal government, but by the Bundestag. A cabinet decision is therefore initially followed by discussions in the Budget Committee and, if necessary, a hearing with experts. Whether it is actually possible to decide on the 2024 budget this year “of course also depends on the extent to which the CDU/CSU requests a new hearing and still needs reading time, which is their right,” says FDP householder Fricke. In any case, the coalition’s householders are “continuing to be prepared to meet between the holidays.”
When the budget committee has completed its work, the budget goes into discussions in the plenary session of the Bundestag and then into the Bundesrat. The last week of the Bundestag this year ends on December 15th, on the same day the Federal Council meets regularly for the last time this year. Theoretically possible would be special sessions a week later. Whether it will still be possible after a cabinet decision “to get through the entire Bundestag and Bundesrat committees depends on how quickly we can finish it and what the deadlines are exactly,” said government spokesman Hebestreit.
One thing is clear: the longer it takes for Scholz, Habeck and Lindner to reach an agreement during their three-way talks in the Chancellery, the less likely it is that the budget will be passed this year. There are still three and a half weeks until the Chancellor’s New Year’s address.