When looking for money for reconstruction in the Ahr Valley in the current year 2024, the federal government found it in an unexpected place: in the 2023 budget. As finance ministry circles reported on Thursday, according to preliminary calculations, the federal government did not fully utilize the budget funds approved for 2023 and recorded a budget surplus in the single-digit billion range. This could now possibly be used to repair flood damage on the Ahr this year, it was said. At least 135 people died in the flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in July 2021. There was material damage of more than 40 billion euros.
The 2024 federal budget provides 2.7 billion euros in aid for the victims of the flood. However, there has so far been a lack of the necessary money because the Federal Constitutional Court declared the previously planned financing via a so-called special fund to be unconstitutional in November.
The federal government may not have to declare a new emergency
The traffic light coalition therefore considered declaring an emergency, as was the case with the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In such a case, the federal government would be allowed to finance the Ahr billions through loans without violating the debt brake enshrined in the Basic Law. Such considerations may now no longer be necessary, it was said in the circles, which confirmed a report by the dpa news agency.
The preliminary budget for 2023, the details of which are to be published next week, is particularly useful for Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), as it takes a little of the wind out of the sails of those in favor of a general suspension of the debt brake.
In particular, SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has repeatedly called for an immediate reform of the constitutional rule in the past few days. “Debt is necessary given that the state has to make investments so that Germany can maintain its leading position in the world,” Mützenich said on Thursday. There is an obligation to future generations to leave behind good conditions. The debt brake should be waived again in 2024 because of the ongoing burden of dealing with the Ahr disaster, Mützenich continued.
However, an expert hearing on Thursday in the Bundestag’s budget committee showed how legally sensitive such a path would be. While the law professors Armin Steinbach and Alexander Thiele expressed the assessment that the Karlsruhe ruling certainly leaves room for the renewed declaration of an emergency in the Ahr, the economist Lars Feld took the opposite view. A look at the relationship between flood relief and the overall budget is enough, says Feld, who is also an advisor to Lindner. The amount involved here is “far too small to be able to determine an emergency situation”.