The new dispute over the federal budget has increased dissatisfaction with the government. The SPD chairman is demanding speed and speaks of an unnecessary “performance” in an ARD summer interview.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil is calling for a quick agreement in the traffic light coalition’s dispute over the 2025 federal budget. “This whole performance that we experienced last week was completely unnecessary, it was superfluous, it has made the country even more uncertain. It is the job of a federal government to hand over a budget to parliament,” said Klingbeil in the ARD summer interview, which was to be broadcast on Sunday in the program “Report from Berlin”.
Dissatisfaction with the government has arisen. Klingbeil said: “Clear expectation: Next week the government’s budget must be completed.”
Agreement announced by mid-August
The dispute has flared up again in recent days. The background to this are plans that were intended to reduce the funding gap in the budget by a total of eight billion euros. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had commissioned reports on the matter due to legal and economic concerns. These partially confirmed the concerns, but also showed ways to implement at least some of the measures.
Lindner, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) want to reach an agreement and bring about a cabinet decision by mid-August.
Klingbeil: “There is no right to laziness”
The SPD chairman also commented on the debate about the citizen’s allowance. He says that during discussions, many people find parts of the citizen’s allowance unfair. “But we’re not talking about, for example, 800,000 people who work and still receive citizen’s allowance because they earn so little money at work that they get something on top,” said Klingbeil.
“What affects people’s sense of justice is when there are suddenly 16,000 people who refuse to cooperate with the state. They take advantage of the state’s solidarity, sit back and say, I don’t have to do anything. And you have to tell them very clearly that they have no right to be lazy.”
Source: Stern
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