Court of Auditors on the 200 billion package: criticism without consequences?

The Federal Court of Auditors is critical of the financing of the 200 billion traffic light relief package. He considers the project partly unconstitutional. The criticism could, however, come to nothing.

In principle, it is a completely normal process: The Federal Audit Office issues a report on an ongoing legislative process in accordance with Section 88 Paragraph 2 of the Federal Budget Code. Of course, the report on the financing of the “defense shield” costing up to 200 billion euros is tough.

The planned financing from the “Economic Stabilization Fund” established in Corona times is “problematic in several ways,” writes the Court of Auditors. In some respects, the planned borrowing even violates constitutional requirements.

violation of constitutional principles

The Court of Auditors is particularly bothered by the fact that a so-called special fund is being created alongside the federal budget. The budget planning of the federal government is becoming increasingly opaque. In the current legislative process, the government is to be allowed to borrow up to 200 billion euros in order to then pay out this money to gas customers and gas companies by 2024.

This is nothing more than borrowing “in advance” and violates “the constitutional principle of annuality,” according to the statement by the financial controllers.

Criticism of the new exception to the debt brake

The Federal Court of Auditors also doubts that an exception to the debt brake in the Basic Law is possible for the 200 billion. According to Article 115 of the Basic Law, this must be an extraordinary emergency. An emergency, in turn, is characterized by the fact that it “occurs unforeseen and can change just as unforeseeably”.

But because no one can reliably predict how the emergency will develop, “emergency loans must not be legitimized well in advance”. If the federal government expects an emergency for the coming year, this must instead be included in the budget deliberations for the coming year, the report from the Court of Auditors goes on to say.

This is exactly what Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) wanted to prevent, of course, because he wants to comply with the debt brake next year after the Corona-related exceptions from 2020 to 2022. The FDP budget politician Otto Fricke also defends the decision of the traffic light coalition to finance up to 200 billion through credit authorizations that will already be approved this year. Otherwise, a renewed softening of the debt brake in the coming year would “open the floodgates to all additional spending requests,” Fricke told the ARD Capital Studio.

Union indicates no to funding

The opposition is different: Christian Haase, the budget spokesman for the Union faction, says that the criticism from the Federal Court of Auditors is so clear “that we cannot go along with the traffic light financing route. We cannot simply ignore the aspect of unconstitutionality,” Haase said the “Handelsblatt”. The Union is not against consumer support, but says no to the type of funding.

However, it is not yet clear what the consequences of this no will be. The traffic light coalition does not need the support of the Union to finance the 200 billion euros via the Economic Stabilization Fund – in contrast to the amendment to the Basic Law, with which the 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr were decided.

Lawsuit in Karlsruhe unlikely

In theory, the Union faction in the Bundestag could file a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court, citing the opinion of the Court of Auditors – to have it checked whether the financing is actually unconstitutional.

In the case of the 200 billion, however, the situation is politically sensitive: some of the CDU and CSU have called for even more relief than the government, and a lawsuit would – despite all budgetary concerns – probably meet with little public understanding. In addition, a lawsuit by the parliamentary group in Karlsruhe is already pending; this is about the reallocation of 60 billion corona debts for the climate and transformation fund. The group said they would wait for the outcome of this lawsuit.

The AfD would sue immediately. According to her spokesman for budgetary policy, Peter Boehringer, she sees her criticism of the federal government’s special funds as confirmed by the report by the Court of Auditors. However, the party alone cannot achieve the participation of at least a quarter of the members of the Bundestag that is necessary for a legal review action.

In this respect, the criticism of the Court of Auditors could certainly play a role in the political debate. However, there should not be a legal examination of a possible violation of the Basic Law.