2023-11-24 21:36:18
Economy State Secretary must go
He made the devastating budget trick possible – and knew the risk from the start
As of: 8:36 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
Budget State Secretary Werner Gatzer
Quelle: picture alliance/Flashpic/Jens Krick
Finance Minister Christian Lindner sends the powerful Budget State Secretary Werner Gatzer into temporary retirement. Even if Lindner didn’t give the reason, the connection is obvious. Gatzer, the “eternal state secretary”, is now leaving a huge mark.
No other state secretary has had such a great influence on the country’s fortunes over the past two decades as Werner Gatzer. “In the other ministries, I am the hustler who tries to keep the money together,” said the head of the budget department, describing himself in an interview with WELT three years ago.
Since 2005, all cabinet ministers have had to go to him if they want money. The man who was already responsible for the federal budget in 2005, when the finance minister was still called Peer Steinbrück (SPD), said he was the “bad guy” of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Now the 65-year-old lawyer has to leave early. Not because he held on to the money too much, but because he enabled the traffic light government to do things that violated the constitution, as the Federal Constitutional Court found in its sensational ruling on November 15th.
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It was he and his budget experts who came up with the construction in the fall of 2021, when the federal election was just over, with which 60 billion euros in Corona aid became climate aid. So they believed that they could still save at least some of the unused loan commitments from 2021. Finance Minister at the time was Olaf Scholz (SPD), who was currently negotiating the coalition agreement with his future partners from the Greens and FDP.
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Christian Lindner (FDP) implemented the model, which was intended to financially advance the climate change demanded by the Greens, in the first weeks of his term in office. Gatzer knew from the start that the matter was legally sensitive. He was sure that someone would take legal action against it.
It was not foreseeable at the time that the defeat before the highest constitutional court almost two years later would be so significant and plunge the coalition into a government crisis. Until recently, the lawyers at the Finance Ministry had given different signals.
Finance Minister Lindner is now sending Gatzer into temporary retirement. “Werner Gatzer has always worked for the BMF and the federal budget with a high level of personal commitment and a lot of energy. He is equally characterized by Rhenish humor and a great sense of duty. He has rendered a service to our country. I am very grateful to him for that,” Lindner wrote in an internal email to the ministry’s employees on Friday.
The eternal Secretary of State leaves his mark
He doesn’t give a reason, but the connection to the turbulent events of the past few days is obvious. Regarding the 60 billion euro maneuver, Lindner wrote in the message: “As a coalition, we decided on this compromise together, so I also bear political responsibility for it. The verdict is now a turning point for state practice.”
The new beginning is associated with a generational change. Wolf Reuter, who was previously head of the policy department, will be the new budget state secretary. Before moving to the Ministry of Finance in 2022, Reuter worked for four years as Secretary General of the Council of Experts, the so-called Economic Experts.
At that time, Reuter worked closely with, among others, the economist Lars Feld, the top economist at the time, who is now Lindner’s personal economic advisor.
Reuter is undoubtedly a good economist, but he can’t do household chores or household technology, according to an initial reaction from the CDU/CSU faction camp. The statement can be interpreted more as recognition for Gatzer’s decades of work than as a disrespectful greeting to his successor. Gatzer, the “eternal state secretary”, leaves behind huge traces.
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He will not only be associated with one of the most violent claps of a government before the Federal Constitutional Court. He was one of the inventors of the debt brake in the noughties and one of the black zero in the 1900s.
The fact that he has to leave at this point is quite surprising. In the coming weeks it will not only be necessary to put together a new federal budget for 2024, but also to work out the probably even more difficult figures for 2025.
It remains to be seen whether Lindner will still miss the “bad guy” in the expected tough negotiations with his cabinet colleagues.
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