After much discussion, the budget for 2024 is in place. The opposition maintains its criticism. She speaks of trickery – and doubts whether the budget is constitutional.
After weeks of struggle, the Bundestag’s Budget Committee has agreed on a draft for the 2024 federal budget. But the opposition parties maintain their sharp criticism of the traffic light coalition’s budget plans.
The Union criticized the draft presented as piecemeal with wrong priorities and “budgetary shambles”. “What we are seeing here is a repair of the repair of the repair,” said the Union parliamentary group’s budget spokesman, Christian Haase. The federal government wants to finance its “favorite projects” instead of focusing on internal and external security and strengthening the economy.
In addition, the traffic light coalition is saving far too little with the budget draft presented, Haase further warned – “two or three billion in total, the rest is additional burdens.” Strict austerity measures are absolutely necessary. The CDU and CSU assume that at least 36 billion euros will have to be saved in the budget for the coming year. “I can’t imagine at the moment that the houses will close this hole in any way,” said Haase.
Union accuses Lindner of a “reserve trick”.
The CDU politician once again raised the question of whether the 2024 federal budget in its current form was constitutionally sound. He accused Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner of having “found money again” for this year using a “reserve trick” in the 2023 annual financial statements.
The 2024 budget was supposed to have been decided long ago, but a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in November deemed the financial planning for the current year to be unconstitutional. The Union parties filed the lawsuit on which the judgment was based. Haase left it open in the Bundestag whether the CDU and CSU would consider such a step again. The Union will calmly examine the questions surrounding the draft budget and then weigh them up, “both from a legal point of view and from a political point of view”.
AfD speaks of “Breach of the Constitution”
For the AfD, the planned budget clearly represents a breach of the constitution – precisely because the traffic light coalition is not saving money in it, but is taking into account money from reserves and new debt.
But not all new debts are officially shown in the draft presented, said Peter Boehringer, budget policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group. According to his party’s calculations, new debt in 2024 will be 77 billion euros and not 39 billion euros as shown in the budget plans. The entire federal budget will amount to at least 540 billion euros, not 476 billion euros.
For the AfD, it is clear where more financial savings could have been made: in the “CO2 and climate ideology area,” as Boehringer put it, in spending on migration policy and through cuts in development aid.
Boehringer criticized the fact that the federal budget for the current year, should it be approved in the planned form by the Bundestag and Bundesrat, would probably be an “unpunished breach of the constitution”. Because he doubted that the Union would file a lawsuit again. His own AfD parliamentary group is too small to initiate a regulatory action.
“The traffic light is hiding behind the debt brake”
Instead, the Left Party criticized the lack of investments planned in the budget. Party leader Martin Schirdewan emphasized to the AFP news agency: “Instead of investing in infrastructure, digital and climate-friendly restructuring of the economy, the traffic lights are hiding behind the debt brake.”
With planned cuts, such as subsidies for rail freight transport, e-mobility and energy-efficient building renovations, the federal government is sabotaging its own climate goals.