Dhe Federal Ministry of Finance is apparently willing to reimburse the levy collected from the banks ten years ago after the financial crisis. This emerges from a template for the Bundestag Finance Committee. It’s about a total of 2.3 billion euros, which were collected from 2011 to 2014 to be prepared if banks should falter again.
The funds have been flowing into the European Bank Resolution Fund (SRF) since 2015. The “old funds” in the national restructuring fund were intended as a reserve to be able to support the European fund as long as it has not yet been sufficiently filled. This bridge financing should end at the turn of the year next.
“Since the SRF will have reached its target volume of around EUR 80 billion by mid-2023 after this year’s bank levies have been set up, a new use could be defined before the end of the build-up phase,” says the note, which Parliamentary Secretary of State for Finance Katja Hessel on March 29 to the chairman of the Bundestag Finance Committee, Alois Rainer (CSU).
The German institutes have been insisting for some time that they can once again benefit from the levy they have paid. “The German banking industry is demanding the reimbursement of the old funds and has agreed to use them bindingly for additional financing of the transformation of the economy,” the experts at Christian Lindner (FDP) formulate, before adding the crucial sentence: “From the point of view of the Federal Ministry of Finance, it could a reimbursement of old funds to support the banks in financing the transformation of the German economy.” According to the Federal Government, there will be a considerable need to finance this.
The Ministry of Finance’s intention is not met with enthusiasm everywhere – to put it mildly. “The banks must be involved in paying the costs of the financial crisis,” demanded Gerhard Schick, head of the campaign organization “Bürgerbewegung Finanzwende”. Apparently, the federal government is planning for the money to flow to the banks so that they can use the billions to finance projects to transform the economy. “The whole thing is advanced. The banks should probably be relieved of their responsibility again,” said the former Green Party member of the Bundestag. This would give them a gift worth billions at the expense of taxpayers.
The organization Finanzwende recalled that the banks were rescued with more than 70 billion euros in tax money during the financial crisis. With the European rescue fund, the national restructuring fund has become unnecessary. The billions in the national fund should be used to repay at least a small part of the debt from the financial crisis, as suggested by a report commissioned by the Ministry of Finance, she warned.