Last week, the traffic light coalition agreed on adjustments to the budget. But Vice Chancellor Habeck believes the Bundestag still has to do some work. He also indirectly criticizes the finance minister.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) has expressed his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the federal government’s budget negotiations. “It would be normal to pass the budget with a funding gap of two percent, i.e. around nine billion,” the Federal Minister of Economics told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. The existing funding gap of 12 billion euros, on the other hand, is “rather unusual.” Because there were too many pre-determinations, it has “not yet been possible to reduce it,” said Habeck.
However, he expects that the gap will be smaller at the end of the parliamentary process. Habeck also assumes that the budget is constitutional. However, he criticized the fact that parts of the reports on the draft budget were made public during the summer recess. Although he did not mention Finance Minister Christian Linder by name, he said: “Such an approach always leads to someone losing face or having to retract their interpretation.”
SPD leader Saskia Esken described the dispute over the budget on Deutschlandfunk as “hard to bear”. The draft budget had already been drawn up and not much had been done about it. “In that respect, the debate was bigger than the topic,” said the SPD party leader. The draft will now go to parliament and people can get back to drafting laws.
Source: Stern
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