federal government
Basic child security: Paus feels supported by Scholz
With basic child security, Lisa Paus wants to combine benefits for families and increase them at the same time. photo
© Britta Pedersen/dpa
With her blockade in the cabinet, Lisa Paus has achieved one thing above all: the self-proclaimed progressive coalition is back in argument mode. In this matter, however, Paus feels supported by the chancellor.
In the coalition-internal dispute about basic child security, the family minister feels Lisa Paus encouraged by the highest authority. “I would like to thank the Chancellor for once again emphasizing his support for basic child security yesterday,” said the Greens politician on the sidelines of an open day at her ministry in Berlin.
“We are on the home stretch and I am optimistic about further talks with the Federal Minister of Finance,” she said, referring to Christian Lindner (FDP).
With the basic child security, Paus wants to combine benefits for families and increase them at the same time. The FDP is critical of performance improvements. Before the summer break, Chancellor Olaf Scholz had asked Paus to submit a unified draft law by the end of August. The SPD politician said on Friday that he saw work on the project as going well.
Blockade of the Growth Opportunities Act
Paus had previously caused an uproar in the cabinet: she blocked the so-called Growth Opportunities Act with tax breaks, which are intended to relieve the economy by around six billion euros a year.
The traffic light must have an eye on both, investments in children and in the economy, said Paus now. “In my opinion, we should send this signal together to the people in the country.” If the federal government does not invest in children, the follow-up costs for the state and society are many times higher than the investment in basic child security, she argued.
Trittin defends Paus
Green politician Jürgen Trittin supported Paus for their blockade. “Lisa Paus’ actions can be more than understood in view of the experiences in the coalition,” said the former Greens parliamentary group leader of the German Press Agency. “Unlike with the Red-Green Party, you can’t rely on agreements with the SPD and the FDP. It’s only logical that the agreed basic child protection is properly financed before you agree to tax cuts from Mr. Lindner.”
Paus “broke through the mechanism whereby the Greens repeatedly paid for a political agreement with the FDP because they paid in advance,” said the former Federal Environment Minister. At the same time, he doubted the effectiveness of the relief proposed by Lindner.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christoph Meyer accused Trittin of “irrational creation of legends”. “Even now, Jürgen Trittin is wrong when he believes that the blackmail and kidnapping of the urgently needed Growth Opportunities Act would help people and companies,” he said. Internal power struggles by the Greens now prevented growth impulses to secure the election stand.
Juso boss Jessica Rosenthal called for a quick agreement on basic child security. “I can’t take another day that there is child poverty in a rich country like Germany and families don’t get the support they deserve,” she told the Rheinische Post. “But the way Lisa Paus is acting here is not a good way. It doesn’t help us to link irrelevant topics together.”
How much money?
Above all, the costs and scope of basic child security are disputed. Only two billion euros are currently earmarked for the starting year 2025 – according to Finance Minister Lindner as a “placeholder”. Paus initially asked for twelve billion, later up to seven billion euros per year. According to a report by “Zeit online”, the draft law should initially be worth 3.5 billion euros in 2025.
NRW Minister of Social Affairs Karl-Josef Laumann called on the traffic light coalition to improve educational opportunities with basic child security. It shouldn’t just be about higher performance, “but above all about improving the chances of advancement for children and young people in the education system,” said the CDU politician to the editorial network Germany. “The central point of this reform should be that children get through school better.”