Supplementary budget approved
Federal government gets billions leeway
01/27/2022, 8:59 p.m
For investments in climate protection, the federal government wants to reallocate billions in loans. The supplementary budget is waved through in the Bundestag. But Lindner’s first draft budget as finance minister will probably end up in court.
The federal government gets billions of leeway for investments in climate protection. The Bundestag passed the controversial supplementary budget for 2021 presented by Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP). This will reallocate 60 billion euros that were already approved as loans but were no longer needed last year. The Union considers the procedure to be unconstitutional and therefore took the first steps to file a lawsuit.
Lindner and the traffic light coalition want to use the money earmarked for investments in climate protection and the transformation of the economy. These include more energy-efficient buildings and CO2-neutral mobility. The building and transport sectors have so far been among the biggest problem children when it comes to climate protection. The traffic light also wants to support industry in investing in new production facilities. Electricity customers should be relieved by the abolition of the EEG levy in the electricity bill.
Originally, however, the loans were approved to deal with the corona pandemic. The Bundestag had therefore allowed the federal government to take on 240 billion euros in new debt and overridden the debt brake.
It is now clear that almost EUR 85 billion of these loans were not taken out at all last year. On the one hand, this is due to higher tax revenues than planned. But it is also due to the fact that many expenses have been left behind because of the pandemic, said SPD housekeeper Dennis Rohde. These investments should now be made up for – with some of the unused credits. “We want to leave this pandemic behind in the long term. We want to prevent a long Covid for the German economy,” emphasized Rohde.
So 60 billion euros are now being shifted to the so-called energy and climate fund – it stipulates exactly which investments the money may be used for in the next few years. The remaining 24.8 billion euros reduce the federal government’s debt, so the permitted new debt is not fully exhausted. According to the Ministry of Finance, the debt ratio will rise less than planned to around 70 percent of economic output. It is well below the value during the financial crisis (82 percent in 2010).
The opposition Union did not agree to the supplementary budget in the Bundestag, nor did the left and AfD – instead they went to court. As soon as the budget plans have been approved in the Bundesrat, a norm control action is to be filed. “The constitutional court will deal with it and we assume that it will then possibly declare this budget unconstitutional as part of an injunction,” said CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt. He spoke of “fraud on the debt brake”. Debts are now being taken on that are not needed, just to finance future expenses that are not yet known.
Union householder Mathias Middelberg speculated that Lindner would probably still use the 2022 budget “to load his pockets full of money” and then not fight the pandemic, but pursue climate change policy. “They want to circumvent the debt brake,” he said to the finance minister. The Federal Court of Auditors also considers the supplementary budget to be “constitutionally dubious”. Because the connection between the 60 billion euro reallocation and the fight against the corona pandemic is not explained conclusively. Climate change must be managed with the normal budgetary rules. Lindner has recently repeatedly emphasized that from 2023 he wants to comply with the debt brake in the Basic Law again without an exception rule.
Only a very small amount of credit would then be possible. For the investments planned in the coalition agreement, including in climate protection, the federal government needs a lot of money – probably more than it takes in. Last year, the Union and SPD, the federal government at the time, decided on a similar reallocation of unused loans in the budget. FDP parliamentary group deputy Christoph Meyer accused the Union of schizophrenia: You are now criticizing an approach as unconstitutional that you supported a few months ago.
The Green Housekeeper Sven-Christian Kindler spoke of double standards and hypocrisy of the Union. If the federal government takes its obligations for the future seriously, it must combine pandemic-related investments with climate protection. If you want to give the economy impulses to overcome the consequences of the pandemic, then you can’t invest in oil heating, he argued. It is about creating future-proof jobs.