The traffic light coalition’s supplementary budget has arrived in the Bundestag. Finance Minister Lindner wants to “cure” the breach of the constitution, as the householders say. The MPs are already one step further in the debate.
A good two weeks after the Constitutional Court almost stopped the traffic light from breathing, the rescue of the budget is taking shape. The coalition introduced its supplementary budget to the Bundestag in the morning, where it was negotiated in the first reading. Finance Minister Christian Lindner emphasized that no new debt would be incurred. But: “Now we are creating legal certainty.” He again put the financing gap for the coming year at 17 billion euros.
The supplementary budget, on the other hand, is intended to iron out the errors of the current year. Debts that have already been incurred now have a new home. So far they have come from the economic stabilization fund in the form of electricity and gas price controls and aid for the flood victims in the Ahr Valley. Since it is generally believed that the Constitutional Court ruling also affects this fund, it had to be blocked and closed at the end of the year. The money spent is now recorded in the supplementary budget. This gives these expenses a valid legal basis again. To achieve this, the government wants and must suspend the debt brake again.
The meeting was the meager remainder of what was supposed to be budget week. The MPs wanted to debate spending for the coming year. The budget should have been finalized two weeks ago in the cleanup session, also known as the “Night of the Long Knives.” But nothing came of it. Because the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe declared the traffic light’s booking tricks to be null and void, the budget for the current year first had to be “healed”, as budget politicians say.
One step further mentally
Apart from Lindner, no minister in the Bundestag was present at this important event. So the parties’ experts threw the arguments at each other. Union householder Mathias Middelberg once again listed the traffic light’s offenses and was met with derisive laughter when he said that confidence now had to be spread. Many in the government factions believe that the Union paints the situation much darker than it actually is. The SPD MP Wiebke Esdar even called it “destroying the state”.
In terms of thought, Middelberg and the following speakers were already one step further. Because this supplementary budget will pass. The Union does not have to agree to this, but it could sue again in Karlsruhe. But she won’t do that, as Merz has already said. Union experts also consider this supplementary budget to be constitutional. Even if the reasoning is suspicious: Lindner declared throughout the year that the emergency was over and spoke of a return to normality. To now, shortly before Christmas, declare the emergency again.
The traffic light was only able to comply with the debt brake because it had created additional budgets with the economic stabilization fund and the climate and transformation fund (KTF). So the federal budget remained within the debt brake, while billions from the WSF just bubbled out – 43.2 billion euros for electricity and gas price brakes alone. It was again a Green politician who found the clearest words of regret about this practice, which is obviously not correct today: “It didn’t work that way, it was a mistake, there’s nothing to sugarcoat it,” said Sven Kindler. While Chancellor Olaf Scholz made no mention of an apology in the government statement on Tuesday, Green Party parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge also expressed her regret.
It’s time to get down to business with the budget for the coming year. Internally, the coalition parties have long been negotiating whether the budget emergency should also be declared next year, i.e. the debt brake should be suspended. The Greens and SPD are largely in favor, the FDP is against it, as is the Union. They point to high tax revenues. “You don’t have the confidence to do 17 billion?” said CDU budget administrator Christian Haase. “Put the heating law back in place, then you’ll have enough money,” he advised.
Union: “Ready to help you with any solution”
Middelberg also called on the traffic light to find the necessary money in the budget: “We are ready to help you with any solution you might need us with,” he said. “That assumes that you’re really tackling your budget now, that you’re really redeploying, that you’re really serious about saving,” he continued. This can be understood in two ways: Firstly, that the Union may not sue against the debt brake being declared again if the traffic light makes serious savings on its own projects beforehand.
Secondly, he could have alluded to a new special fund, modeled on the Bundeswehr. This could be used to finance the funding projects from the Climate and Transformation Fund. But the Union would have to agree to this. Although she is very cautious rhetorically on this question, she does not rule it out either. Either way, this could also be a “solution” that Middelberg might have had in mind.
Meanwhile, traffic light politicians like Kindler and Dennis Rohde from the SPD tried to divide the Union. There is a difference between the opposition in the Bundestag and in the states, said Rohde. He wasn’t the only one who referred to Schleswig-Holstein, where CDU Prime Minister Daniel Günther has already declared a budget emergency. However, this has a lot to do with an actual, ideal cause: a natural disaster. This refers to the Baltic Sea storm surge that caused major damage in October.
Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff is worried about the subsidies for the large planned Intel chip factory in Magdeburg and is also open to a renewed suspension of the debt brake at the federal level. And then there is Berlin’s governing mayor Kai Wegner, who even spoke out in “Stern” for a reform of the debt brake – which Merz excludes. All speakers should agree on at least one point: time is of the essence. A new budget should be in place by the new year.