2024-04-22 22:27:32
Basic child welfare remains a contentious issue within the federal government. Now the Federal Minister for Family Affairs has also spoken of errors in her communication.
In the dispute over basic child welfare, Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus admitted errors in her communication – especially regarding the 5,000 positions required for this. “Perhaps I should have made it even clearer, right at the beginning, that it was about the forecast figures from the Federal Employment Agency,” said the Green politician in the podcast of the media company “Table.Briefings”.
The numbers are from November 2023 and do not yet fully take into account relief in other places such as job centers. “It is a nonsensical debate that we have had in this country over the last two weeks, which is why we have clearly ended it together. Because we argued about forecast figures from November last year and that has nothing to do with the negotiation situation,” said Pause.
The draft law on basic child welfare, which is considered the Greens’ prestige social policy project, is currently being discussed by the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had asked Paus to revise it: There should be no disproportionate administrative effort and no incentives for people to stop working because of higher social benefits.
Fewer places “very realistic”
Paus said that the parliamentary negotiations are now about optimizing interfaces between the authorities. “We have identified a number of things where we can bundle things together more and where we can concentrate more on the family budget so that there are synergy effects and relief effects in other areas,” she explained. “That’s why it’s very realistic that we can manage to get by with fewer than 5,000 jobs.”
In the interview, Paus left it open as to whether basic child security would be introduced at the beginning of 2025 as planned. Paus ruled out resigning, as suggested by Union politicians.
With basic child security, the federal government wants to bundle previous benefits such as child benefit, benefits from citizen’s benefit for children and the child allowance. The aim is to ensure that all families who are entitled to corresponding benefits will receive them in full in the future. According to the Family Ministry, this has so far only been the case for a fraction.