2024-07-13 00:11:42
Hurray, the country has a budget for the coming year! At first glance, Finance Minister Lindner has prevailed. But after the agreement comes the dispute.
You have to be careful not to lose your sense of proportion and to see the obvious as a sensation when you look at the state of the traffic lights. Just like now. The coalition has drawn up a budget for the coming year: madness! Breaking news! Push notification! The traffic lights are alive! They can do it! Some Asterix-loving readers may be reminded of the relevant scene of the Roman with the supposed magic potion inside him: who thinks he’s a superman just because he can pick up a pebble.
So, now everyone take three deep, calm breaths. Drawing up a budget for the coming year is the most normal thing in the world, a basic requirement, a compulsory exercise, but by no means a free choice. Anyone who gets excited about it now will also celebrate the financial plan at an owners’ meeting, which only heralds the real event (should we buy a heat pump? Does the staircase need to be painted?) and gives the projects a rough framework.
But with this traffic light coalition, this conditio sine qua non, this necessary condition, required all the strength of the big three at the top. The result is a budget that is more or less what Christian Lindner, the finance minister, wanted from the start. All departments have more or less met the savings targets, a little accounting trickery has been done here and there, or at least creative work has been done. And the growth package with tax breaks for those who like to work and stimulus for the economy has also been put together. All of this without touching on the debt brake. So you might be tempted to say: 3:0 for the finance minister.
But here too, caution is required! The leaders of the parliamentary groups have already expressed their desire to postpone everything in the parliamentary process at their own discretion. And there is still a long time to go before the reconciliation session in the autumn. The SPD parliamentary group in particular is likely to be the scene of skirmishes. There, support for the Chancellor and his adherence to the debt brake has become very fragile.
Furthermore, as with the household’s economic plan, changes can quickly become necessary if the approach is rosy and unrealistic. As the negotiations currently underway in parallel on a supplementary budget for the current year show. And both in these and in any supplementary budget for 2025, Hui Buh, the ghost of this government called the debt brake, will once again haunt the political arena.
Because the circumstances have not changed: the SPD’s desire to spend on social issues (keyword: citizens’ income) is offset by the need for investment in the military and urgent relief for the economy. The Federal Constitutional Court knocked the magic wand to bring all of this together out of the traffic light coalition’s hand last late autumn. Therefore, on this happy day, the motto is: after the agreement comes the dispute.