The feds are targeting loopholes in the federal budget, and some are taking a beating. Finance Minister Lindner is avoiding the issue and showing loyalty to the traffic lights.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner has bold budget ideas. Photo: Axel Schmidt/Reuters
Berlin Taz | The Union has found a game that is easy to understand. It is a “hole” in the federal budget, like financial mini-golf. On Tuesday, Mathias Middelberg (CDU) accused the federal government of having an “open position” worth hundreds of billions of euros. “Your budget is extremely unrealistic, dishonest and irresponsible,” the Union’s parliamentary group vice-president and finance expert explained.
This year’s budget debate began in the Bundestag on Tuesday. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) began his speech by presenting the joint budget draft of the SPD, Greens and FDP for 2025. The negotiations in the coming weeks will focus on the supplementary budget for 2024.
Middelberg, the first speaker of the opposition coalition, attacked the coalition. It will be short of funds until the federal elections in 2025 at the latest. This claim is based mainly on the fact that there are large amounts left unaddressed in the draft budget. First of all, these are two so-called “global underspending”: 12 billion euros in the core budget and an additional 9 billion euros in the climate change fund. From this fund, the government supports, among other things, industrial support programs and subsidies. settlements.
Global underspending is an estimate of the amount of money that will be left over at the end of the year, for example, if a new building is not completed on time. However, this ranking is unusually high in the 2025 draft compared to previous years.
Attack surface
Also, CDU budget politician Christian Haase had a similar list of other positions sent to him by Lindner’s State Secretary Florian Toncar, including the lack of additional global spending in the tens of billions of dollars from citizens’ money and the German Bundeswehr. It is unclear whether this amount is actually not being spent. This does not actually make the budget any more solid and provides an easy target for the opposition.
However, other reductions in the list (such as interest payments on loans received by the government) would probably work. You are simply changing the accounting for other years that are merely administrative actions.
But the Federal Finance Minister did not get involved in such subtleties. Lindner stressed that the largest part of the underspending, at €12 billion, was only slightly above what is generally considered manageable. The remaining €20-€30 billion will be raised together with the government faction.
Investment balance
Otherwise, Lindner has taken care of the big line. He accuses the federation of being idly enjoying the good old days of economic prosperity before the corona pandemic. The government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU left the current coalition with a huge investment backlog and too high taxes for companies. The traffic lights must now ease the burden on companies by reducing the new tax depreciation options and lower electricity prices.
Private households should also receive tax breaks. And according to Lindner, this means, for example, saving citizens’ money to reduce state spending. And according to the finance minister, “record investments of 81 billion euros” are on the agenda for 2025 alone. That’s almost twice as much as in 2019, before the traffic lights came on. Deutsche Bahn will receive a significant portion of this, 18 billion euros, for line renovation.
Overall, Lindner supported the coalition. He did not back down and emphasized “climate neutrality as a core task.” However, he acknowledged the difficulties of a three-party government. The financial negotiations between them were “not a sure success.” They were dealing with “three different ways of thinking.” But “as long as agreement is possible, it is necessary.”
