Bundestag: Three households in a short time: how things will continue now

After the budget, there is before the household before the problem household: the Federal Government and Bundestag has been concerned with the budget for weeks. How much money can any ministry spend? What do you take out loans for? What social welfare, funding programs and subsidies can the federal government still afford? And how do you stuff a financing gap that has not yet seen a federal government on this size?

Now the Bundestag has taken a crucial step for the budget of the current year: the budget 2025 is ready for coordination in parliament. But it will only apply for a few months – and behind the scenes the work on the budget for 2026 and 2027. The timetable:

What has now been decided

The powerful budget committee of the Bundestag had its most important session on Thursday evening: the cleaning session for the draft budget 2025. The housekeepers had ministers auditioned and made the last changes to their budgets. There was no longer any dispute, said Union house hater Christian Haase afterwards. The opposition criticizes this: The MPs of the Union and the SPD were handled too gently with their ministers, the government’s prolonged arm should simply be.

At eleven hours, the session was significantly shorter than in previous years. In the end there was a figure that provides for expenditure of around 502.5 billion euros. That is about 460 million less than the government originally planned. The coalition housekeepers did not name large projects where savings were made.

Instead, they put some money out for the renovation of sports facilities in the municipalities: The special pot for the infrastructure -financed special pot is expected to flow a billion euros in the next four years. There are also additional funds for the Technical Relief Agency (THW), the UN World Food Program receives 22 additional million.

Opposition: household too opaque

The opposition primarily criticizes a transparent distribution of the funds in its view. “In the meantime, I think nobody understands this overall household,” said AfD MP Michael Espendiller. Dietmar Bartsch from the left described the budget with new debt and various special funds as a “financial policy maze”. The chief housekeeper of the Greens, Sebastian Schäfer, complained “shift trains and booking tricks”.

When the household 2025 finally applies

The Bundestag is to finally decide on the budget at the week of session from September 16 to September 19. The consent is basically certain. If the budget comes into force, more than two thirds of the year are over – basically it only applies for three months. Due to the fracture of the traffic light government, the early Bundestag election and the new government formation was no time for the budget constellation. So far, the ministries had to do business with a provisional housekeeping, which significantly limits their scope.

As is going on with the 2026 budget

Because the federal government wants to prevent preliminary housekeeping for the next year, the housekeepers in the Bundestag had to go through two budgets in parallel. The one for 2026 has already been decided in the cabinet. Now he comes to the Bundestag immediately after the vote on the 2025 budget. The first debate is in the last week of September.

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) is planning for 2026 with even higher expenses, more precisely 520.5 billion – and even higher debts. Reasons are again planned for development expenditure – this should still be disputed in the Bundestag. Because the budget applies regularly for the entire year, the housekeepers should also see more change. The next adjustment meeting in November will “not end twelve”, but rather take until three or five in the morning, said Bartsch.

What problems there are with the budget 2027

Compared to what Klingbeil and the house holders are still imminent, households 2025 and 2026 are still a sugar slack. Because there are already huge funding gaps in the planning: around 34 billion euros are missing in 2027, for 2028 the ministry has a “need for action” of 63.8 billion, and a gap of 74 billion for 2029.

The reasons are partly homemade: the federal government compensates for tax failures of the federal states, the mother’s pension is to be expanded a year earlier than initially planned. At the same time, the federal government has to start to spend loans from the Corona period.

According to Klingbeil, no coalition in history has ever been confronted with a 30 billion gap. The Vice Chancellor has therefore already started the budget constellation – months earlier than usual. The state secretaries of the ministries are said to meet in September. Klingbeil expects a “joint effort”, each ministry is intended to submit savings proposals for one percent of its budget.

The SPD boss also does not rule out that laws have to be changed to stuff the huge funding gap and previous claims must be deleted. The debates about social reforms and any tax increases have long been running, also cheered on by Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). He made Labor Minister Bärbel BAS (SPD) a savings: With the citizens’ allowance, ten percent, i.e. five billion euros, would have to be deleted. To convey hard savings decisions of the population, that should be the true test of the Union and the SPD of the next few months.