Evaluation of the KfW funding bank
Municipalities are missing a record amount for necessary investments
The preservation of buildings and streets overwhelms many cities and municipalities. Future investments cannot be considered. State billions could alleviate the need.
Schools, streets, sports halls – in Germany’s cities and municipalities, billions are missing for necessary investments. The municipalities would have to invest the record amount of 215.7 billion euros in order to bring their infrastructure back into an adequate state. This was the result of this year’s survey of combing on behalf of the KfW support bank (“KfW-Kommunalpanel”). In the previous year, the perceived investment backlog increased by almost 16 percent or 29.6 billion euros.
With investments at a planned amount of 48 billion euros in the current year, the municipalities are at least a little help. However, experience has shown that not all funds are issued as planned – for example because of lengthy approval processes and understaffed building authorities. The plans for 2024 provided for investments of 47 billion euros, ultimately it was 30 billion euros according to the extrapolation.
Hope for the federal government packages
Fresh state billions from the special fund infrastructure of the federal government could help the municipalities. These funds would have to be “targeted, but as unbureaucratic as possible”, says KfW bosswirt Dirk Schumacher. According to Schumacher’s assessment, this money will not be sufficient anyway: “It is part of the solution, but it is not yet the solution.”
The President of the German City Day, the Mayor of Leipzig Burkhard Jung (SPD), warns that the funds reserved for the municipalities from the special fund would have to “arrive quickly and easily on site in the cities and municipalities and are not allowed to infiltrate”. Because: “We live more and more on the substance,” says Jung.
The municipalities see the largest investment deficit in school buildings. Almost a third (31 percent) of the total investment deficit is in this area: a good 67.8 billion euros. More than every second municipality (56 percent) reports on noteworthy or serious defects in school buildings.
According to the KfW list, the cities and municipalities would have to invest around 53.4 billion euros, in fire and disaster protection, a good 19.9 billion euros, in administrative buildings 19.5 billion euros, in sports halls and swimming pools around 15.6 billion euros.
Maintaining the infrastructure is becoming more and more an effort
And the problem is getting bigger: According to KfW information, the proportion of those municipalities, cities and circles has increased noticeably, which the maintenance of their infrastructure in the past five years has only been limited or no longer succeeded: in the area of school buildings from 11 to 17 percent, in streets and traffic infrastructure from 26 to 32 percent. “This increases the wear of the existing infrastructure in many places and thus the risk of the need for larger repair measures,” says the sponsoring bank.
dpa
Source: Stern
