After the tax estimate, the final struggle over the budget begins in the Bundestag. This is about a financial hole that no one really knows how big it really is.
Christian Lindner (FDP) makes an effort to look serious as he appears in front of the cameras. After all, he brought some serious news. “The most important message first,” he says, ”there is no scope for distribution policy.” The Finance Minister has been seeing it for some time now, and savings have to be made. And this Thursday he sees himself confirmed once again.
Lindner is currently in Washington DC at the fall meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. 6,710 kilometers as the crow flies separate the finance minister from his official residence near Potsdamer Platz. What’s actually going on across the Atlantic is major financial policy and the state of the global economy. The fact that he still connects from America to Germany via video has to do with a number, or more precisely: with a sum that will keep political Berlin busy in the coming weeks.
982 billion euros. According to experts’ estimates, this is how much tax money the federal government, states and municipalities are likely to collect next year. Lot of money. But a little less than originally hoped. 995 billion were expected in the summer. The state’s financial situation is getting worse. Just how much? And how much pressure to save is there really? The SPD, Greens and FDP will continue to argue about this in the next few weeks when they prepare the budget for 2025 in the Bundestag. It’s already starting.
The question of how big the hole is in next year’s budget is not that easy to answer. On Thursday, Lindner first tried a very large number: the “need for action” for 2025 is 13.5 billion euros. That sounds like a lot, and probably not by chance. The finance minister wants to urge the coalition to be disciplined; that is his job.
The number is intended to support his conclusion. And that reads: “New spending requests cannot be fulfilled.” And: In order for the calculation to work, the legislative package that is intended to stimulate the economy must definitely come.
But the situation is not quite as dramatic as the 13.5 billion euros would suggest. Among other things, because the state is now allowed to take out higher loans
If that were to happen, the current hole in the budget would initially only grow by around 1.6 billion euros. That would add up to around 2.4 billion euros, i.e. the amount by which the traffic light wants to reduce the previously unusually large global underspending. This is the amount that experience shows is not spent in the end.
According to the tax estimate, the traffic light would now have to save around 4 billion euros instead of the previously thought 2.4 billion euros. However, a few billion more could be added in the next few weeks, and that is also true. Only then will it be clearer how much money is actually spent on citizens’ money and on compensating for the EEG surcharge.
At the end, Christian Lindner speaks of a “single-digit billion amount as a need for action, but it is closer to ten than to one.”
So dramatic? Lindner’s coalition partners are comparatively relaxed in their initial reactions. The Greens’ budget spokesman, Sven-Christian Kindler, said the results showed “that we need new economic and social stimulus.” The challenges for the federal budget are “nevertheless manageable”.
They see it similarly with the SPD. The responsible parliamentary group vice-president, Achim Post, said that the estimate would now of course be included in the discussions. “However, the budget negotiations will not be faced with insoluble tasks, also since the economic component of the debt rule allows for higher borrowing to stimulate the economy.”