“Only with basic child security”
Greens attach conditions to the budget
06/28/2023, 10:07 p.m
The traffic light dispute over the budget continues. The green ministers in the cabinet have announced their rejection if finance minister Lindner continues to put the brakes on basic child security. Family Minister Paus estimated twelve billion more.
According to a media report, the Greens are demanding basic commitments to basic child security from Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner before the cabinet decision on the 2024 federal budget planned for next week. The “Rheinische Post” reports, citing Green circles. Without an agreement with Lindner on the cornerstones of Family Minister Lisa Paus on basic child security and adequate funding, the ministries led by the Greens would not approve the budget next Wednesday.
According to the newspaper report, the Green Ministries for Family, Economics and the Federal Foreign Office only passed on their individual budgets for 2024 to Lindner with this strict reservation. The FDP leader wants the federal budget to be approved by the cabinet on July 5.
The basic child security is intended to bring together services for children such as child benefit, the standard rate for children in basic income, the child allowance and services from the so-called education and participation package. Many families have so far not applied for benefits due to ignorance or bureaucratic hurdles. Family Minister Paus considers an introduction in 2025 to be possible. The Greens and FDP have been arguing for months about how much money the project should cost. Paus had previously estimated costs of twelve billion euros.
Scholz and Lindner do not expect high additional costs
It seems undisputed within the government that the basic security should come. For months, however, the Greens and the FDP have been arguing about how much money the project should cost. Paus had previously estimated costs of twelve billion euros, but Lindner saw little room for maneuver in the budget. Lindner and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized several times that a lot has already been done financially with the increase in child benefit and child allowance. In Lindner’s opinion, additional money would only have to flow for the merging of family policy benefits – and for this if more families apply for help because of this simplification.
According to “Spiegel”, Lindner will grant ten out of 16 departments more money in 2024 than previously planned. This is evident from a list of the output caps for all ministries, the magazine reported at the beginning of last week. The Ministry of Finance has not yet confirmed the report. “As usual, we do not comment on the reporting,” said the ministry’s press office. “The process of drawing up the federal budget is ongoing.” On Monday, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported that several departments had not submitted the distribution of their budgets to the individual budget titles, despite the deadline for submissions on June 12. It was unclear whether Family Minister Paus was among the stragglers.