Lindner vows the coalition to pursue strict austerity measures

2023-11-24 11:48:04

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will make a government statement in the Bundestag next week on the consequences of the Constitutional Court’s budget ruling. Chancellery Minister Wolfgang Schmidt announced this in the Federal Council on Friday. Accordingly, the Federal Cabinet wants to approve the draft for a supplementary budget for the current year announced by Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) at the beginning of next week. The Bundestag is scheduled to deal with this in the same week.

Last week, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the massive increase in the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) with unused loans from the corona pandemic to be inadmissible. As a result, the traffic light coalition will now lack 60 billion euros for energy transition projects in the coming years. Other special funds such as the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF), from which the energy price caps are paid, must now be placed on a different legal basis. That is why the supplementary budget for 2023 is necessary. According to Schmidt, Chancellor Scholz wants to comment on the consequences of the ruling in the Chancellery on Friday. How this should happen remained unclear.

The Chancellery Minister emphasized that crisis aid would still be possible even after the clarifications from Karlsruhe. However, there are now “clear guidelines” as to how these should be designed. In emergency situations that lasted several years, the Bundestag would have to pass a new resolution every year to take out loans. “The financing of the aid over several years cannot – as was previously planned – be done through a special fund that is initially filled by taking out a loan.”

“FDP does not shirk its responsibility”

The Federal Constitutional Court’s decision therefore has “significant implications” – not only for the federal government, but also for similar budgetary practices in the states, emphasized Schmidt. The federal government will now “do everything in its power to implement the Federal Constitutional Court’s requirements quickly and carefully.” Together with the Bundestag and Bundesrat, she will work to ensure that investments in the future are still possible.

FDP Federal Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki had previously opposed the Finance Minister’s intended suspension of the debt brake. “In my opinion, such a step is difficult to convey,” Kubicki told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Although it is legally possible to suspend the debt brake again, it would create “significant trust problems”.

As a consequence of the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling, the traffic light coalition wants to suspend the debt brake again this year. Lindner announced a supplementary budget on Thursday. With a supplementary budget for this year, the government will “propose a resolution to the Bundestag to declare an exceptional emergency situation for the year 2023,” wrote Lindner in the online service X. This is the prerequisite for suspending the debt brake.

Kubicki, on the other hand, called for a paradigm shift in budget policy. It is imperative to talk about reducing certain government spending. “The fact that we are paying well over 30 billion euros for development aid, for example, is difficult to convey given the severity of the budgetary problem,” said the Vice President of the Bundestag. However, for Kubicki, leaving the FDP from the traffic light coalition is out of the question. “The Free Democrats are not shirking their responsibility,” he said.

Meanwhile, party leader Lindner is vowing the coalition to pursue strict austerity measures. “We are talking about a significant additional need for consolidation,” Lindner told the “Handelsblatt”. “We are talking about double-digit billions, for example to implement the ambitious plans to renew the infrastructure and invest in technology,” said the FDP leader. The 2024 and 2025 budgets must be considered together. “In my view, structural changes are inevitable.” Lindner did not want to comment on whether the federal government will declare an emergency again in 2024. “Right now I’m just looking at 2023,” he said.