Federal budget
Tough allegations in credit reallocation debate
Wants to reallocate 60 billion euros for investments in climate protection and digitization: Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner. Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
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Hypocrisy, breach of the constitution, slander: in the first budget debate in the new Bundestag, emotions boil. Finance Minister Lindner’s submission is even supposed to end up in court.
The opposition has accused Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) of breaking the constitution for the planned restructuring of billions in loans in the budget.
The traffic light parliamentary groups accused the Union on Thursday of hypocrisy and opportunism. Lindner defended his plans. This is to be voted on in parliament at the beginning of the new year.
The finance minister wants to reallocate 60 billion euros for investments in climate protection and digitization, which were approved as loans due to the Corona crisis in 2021, but were not taken out. They should be put on the high edge in a climate and transformation fund, so to speak, so that they do not expire but can still be used in the years to come.
The opposition considers the move to be unconstitutional because money that was approved to fight the corona crisis is to be used for climate protection and other projects. “In a miraculous transformation, corona loans become climate loans,” criticized Union housekeeper Christian Haase on Thursday. “It is obvious that you are undermining the debt brake with this daring maneuver,” he accused Lindner and added: “I consider this supplementary budget to be unconstitutional. I consider this supplementary budget to be the beginning of the end of the debt brake. And that will be linked to your name. “
The Union parliamentary group wants to have the budget examined by the Federal Constitutional Court. AfD and the Left also consider it unconstitutional. The left housekeeper Gesine Lötzsch asked why the money was not used in the current year – for example for vaccines, air filters or nursing staff. “The old government was unable and unwilling to spend this money sensibly,” she said.
Lindner defended the billions in reallocations. “It is by no means about financing general projects of the Ampel coalition,” he emphasized. He gave a clear promise that the money would only be used to cushion the damage caused by the corona pandemic. Due to the crisis, many investments were not possible recently, which now urgently need to be made up. “We mustn’t lose time with the transformation due to the pandemic,” emphasized Lindner.
Politicians from the Greens and the SPD drew attention to last year’s budget. At that time, the black-red federal government also shifted funds into the fund – and the Union even referred to this as a vitamin injection. If you complain against it now, it is “not an honest budget policy, it is hypocrisy,” said the Green housekeeper Sven-Christian Kindler. He emphasized that the loans had been approved, among other things, to mitigate the economic consequences of the pandemic and to stabilize the economy – and that is exactly what they should be used for now.
The SPD budget politician Dennis Rohde accused the Union of turning “opportunism into a fighter against prosperity in this country”. Failure to act now would seriously jeopardize the upswing.
Immediately before the debate, the new chairman of the budget committee, the CDU politician Helge Braun, had sharply criticized the supplementary budget. The Union is very worried. “Because that is a very fundamental break with the budgetary solidity in Germany that we are currently experiencing,” he said on Deutschlandfunk.