Budget: Lindner sends savings targets to ministries

Movement in the deadlocked budget dispute of the traffic light government: The Ministry of Finance has informed the other departments how much money should be available to them in the coming year.

The departments are now being asked to “develop their respective ceilings on their own responsibility,” explained a ministry spokeswoman. It still applies that the debt brake must be observed. The procedure was coordinated with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck.

According to information from the “Handelsblatt”, with the exception of the Ministry of Defense, all departments have to save – albeit to different extents. In 2024, some ministries should even be able to get by with less money than was previously planned in the medium-term financial plan.

Investments and social spending, for which there are legal entitlements, are to be exempted for the time being. Cuts in benefits, including social spending, cannot be ruled out in principle if the ministries do not save enough, reports the “Handelsblatt”.

From circles in the Ministry of Finance, it was said that Finance Minister Christian Lindner discussed the further procedure for preparing the budget with his colleagues on Wednesday. Scholz and he both emphasized that the government draft should be available before the parliamentary summer break on July 7th. The Budget Committee of the Bundestag, which then continues to work with the draft, also expects this.

Not all coalition partners support Lindner’s course

Lindner had recently identified a financing gap of around 20 billion euros in the budget plans for the coming year. Among other things, additional costs due to the collective bargaining agreement in the public sector and higher interest rates must be compensated. He insists that the debt brake enshrined in the Basic Law is adhered to and that the ministries run appropriate austerity programs instead.

But not all coalition partners support this course. From the ranks of the Greens and the SPD there are repeated calls to ensure more income through additional burdens for the rich. From the point of view of the coalition partners, cuts in climate-damaging subsidies should also relieve the expenditure side.

The parliamentary group leader responsible for budget and finances, Andreas Audretsch, also criticized Lindner’s savings targets. “Lawn mower cuts are not a smart budgetary policy,” he told the German Press Agency. “An austerity policy that jeopardizes social programs, democracy projects, innovation and SME policies or environmental protection across the board damages social cohesion and our future.” In his view, cutting humanitarian aid and diplomacy would also be a mistake.

The alternative is obvious, said Audretsch: “It is inexplicable, on the one hand, to continue to subsidize the large company cars of the richest with billions and, on the other hand, to mothball sports or youth programs.” It is now the task of the finance minister, but also of the chancellor, to present a draft budget that can be agreed.