2023-06-29 19:06:03
Towards the end of the internal government budget deliberations, the situation in the coalition deteriorated dramatically. Everything depends on Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) and her insistence on additional billions for the planned basic child security – which is not supposed to come until 2025. But in the medium-term financial planning, the Greens politician would like to see the project, which her group sees as central for this legislative period, continue to be taken into account with 5 billion euros, according to information from the FAZ. That is more than twice what Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) says he considers affordable.
The ministers of the Greens are said to be threatening not to approve the budget if basic child security is not sufficiently taken into account. The FDP is not defenseless in this situation. In return, it could block the final reading of the Building Energy Act. The fact that there are rumors about it in the background gives an idea of how serious the situation is. A coalition politician even spoke of the “endgame”.
Last minute compromise?
According to the usual rules, Lindner would have to send the draft for the 2024 budget, including medium-term financial planning, to the departments this Friday so that the cabinet can decide on it next Wednesday. The day before, there were still more questions than answers. The Finance Minister kept a low profile as far as his further plans are concerned. Can you find a compromise at the last minute? Or will the FDP politician, if necessary, send the draft against the vote of the ministers with green party membership?
What happens in the cabinet on Wednesday: will the budget be decided by a majority, even though consensus is usually reached there? Or do the Greens ministers agree – and at the same time make a statement on the record that they consider it essential to include the necessary billions for basic child security in the course of parliamentary deliberations in the budget of the family minister?
A new dissent is likely to leave a fatal impression
The FDP showed the way with the building energy law with their reservation. That was the beginning of an agonizing tugging that still hasn’t ended. A new dissent in the cabinet is likely to leave a fatal impression. The draft budget is nothing more than a government program cast in figures. If the traffic light parties didn’t come to an agreement here, it would be clear to everyone: We don’t have a common basis for future governance.
Could the MPs later clarify what the government shouldn’t be able to do? That too might be difficult. In any case, the coalition faces a summer of discontent. Nobody in the traffic light can have an interest in that. This suggests that the coalition partners agreed at the last moment on a face-saving solution for everyone.
A postponement of the cabinet appointment is still unlikely. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) have long left little doubt that they are determined to get rid of this issue of conflict before the parliamentary summer recess. On Tuesday, Lindner confirmed this schedule on the sidelines of the meeting with his counterparts from France and Poland with the words: “On July 5th, the federal cabinet will decide on a budget.”
Jasper von Altenbockum and Eckart Lohse Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 8 A comment by Manfred Schäfers Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 20 Manfred Schäfers Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 32
The budget negotiations this year have been unusual, even without the recent escalation. In March, due to a lack of consensus, Lindner refrained from presenting key points, as has been the case for a good decade. The additional spending requests from cabinet colleagues added up to around 70 billion euros. Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck sent a harsh letter to Lindner on behalf of his fellow ministers from the Greens, in which he called on him to provide additional income and to refrain from environmentally harmful expenditure. Lindner’s answer was mockingly biting.
Later, there was a long struggle as to how the gap of 20 billion euros between income and permissible new borrowing on the one hand and expenditure on the other should be closed in order to come within the range of what the Basic Law defines as permissible. Most recently, with Habeck’s consent, variable expenses were cut across the departments.
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