Coalition committee: A plan for the second half of the year: five construction sites of the coalition

“Bullshit” allegations here, iron savings there: The climate in the black and red coalition is tense-even though Union and SPD actually wanted to use the summer break to let the heated minds cool down. In the Chancellery in Berlin, the coalition peaks meet today in order to collapse and take a new attempt for their projects in autumn. The warm -up phase of 100 days is over, now the government partners have to prove that they can also keep what they can hold.

At the first coalition committee in May, Schwarz-Rot had decided on an immediate program with more than a dozen measures. “It is now a stroke,” promised Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) at the time. Large parts, such as tax depreciation and measures against exuberant bureaucracy, should be implemented before the summer vacation. Now the partners want to take stock of whether this has succeeded – and tighten the work program for the second half of the year.

New here: A gap in the high billion -out area in financial planning, which was not yet included in the writing of the coalition agreement. She suddenly questioned a lot of decided – and she reveals that the Union and the SPD pursue very different political goals on some topics.

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) has put together the federal budget for 2025 and 2026 somewhat silently. But in the budget planning for 2027, a 30 billion euro hole gaps. No federal government has ever successfully stuffed such a gap in financing.

Black and red will also hardly succeed through cuts and the hoped-for economic growth alone. Painful decisions are now also necessary for subsidies, support programs and in the social and tax system. Currently, measures such as a higher commuter flat rate and promotion for agrardiesel threaten to tear additional holes into the budget that you cannot actually afford.

It is criticized loudly behind the scenes that not everyone in the coalition is equally willing to make a contribution to saving and reforming. At the coalition committee you have to promise that in your hand, it is said.

The social system with a pension, health and long-term care insurance, citizen benefit and other benefits threatens to become increasingly expensive for the contributors due to the economic weakness and demographic development. Between the Union and the SPD, a fundamental debate has recently boiled up on the costs for the welfare state: the Union, Minister of Labor Bärbel Bas, was briefly countered with “Bullshit”.

The focus is particularly on citizenship money. Chancellor Merz put BAS under pressure in a summer interview: five billion euros would have to be saved here, he calculated the SPD leader. “If we no longer dare to save ten percent in a transfer system that runs in the wrong direction, then we fail before this task,” said the CDU boss in an interview from Sat.1. In the evening he had an appointment with BAS to eat, as he revealed at an event. “This is also part of my duties. I look forward to the end of this evening with confidence.”

A reform draft is being worked on in the Ministry of Labor. The focus – this emerges from earlier statements from BAS – are likely to be subject to felling duties. Not quite what the Union hopes for. Specific resolutions are not to be expected on this topic from the coalition committee today: A commission should make suggestions for long -term reforms.

Also initiated by the financing gaps in the household, a debate about possible tax increases that could flush money into the state treasury is running. And at the chief level: Klingbeil had not excluded higher taxes for top earners and the wealthy. Merz, on the other hand, made such ideas a fundamental cancellation.

In the meantime, however, the chairman of the Christian Democratic Working (CDA), Dennis Radtke, also spoke out for certain increases: inheritance tax could be tightened. In addition, the rich tax, which is still above the top tax rate of 42 percent at 45 percent, could be raised somewhat.

Finally, SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch followed: “If we want to relieve the middle income and maybe even want to start the top tax rate later, then you have to say how to finance it. And then those who have a lot to be asked to pay more,” he said in the of Politico.

A federal government has never planned so high investments – but how do you ensure that the money really flows off? That has already been a problem in recent years. Now an investment acceleration law is in conversation that could be lashed in the coalition committee. In addition, experts from the federal government are intended to help use the money from the 500 billion euro special assets for infrastructure.

The big excitement before the summer break, the dispute over the occupation of judge posts at the Federal Constitutional Court, continues to smoke. According to Miersch, the SPD has found a new candidate. But the Union still has to agree. And then there are talks with the Greens and the left in the Bundestag. However, the coalition committee will hardly solve this problem too: Merz and Klingbeil leave these negotiations to the factions and keep themselves out.