On November 15th, the federal government was caught off guard by the ruling from Karlsruhe: The Federal Constitutional Court prohibited the reallocation of money for climate protection that was intended to combat the consequences of Corona. Because of this ruling, the budget for 2023 is on shaky ground. The Ministry of Finance hastily put together a supplementary budget, which was approved by the cabinet yesterday – two days earlier than planned.
According to the plan, the Bundestag should again declare an emergency so that new debts above the debt brake can be taken on.
At 10 a.m., Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to make a government statement – and is under a lot of pressure. The Chancellor has not yet taken a clear position, although the debate about the budget debacle has been in full swing for almost two weeks. And what the 2024 budget will look like is still completely unclear.
At the center of this discussion. Article 109 of the Basic Law, Paragraph 3 – the debt brake. Many in the SPD and the Greens would like to abolish it; the FDP has clearly committed itself to it on several occasions. The situation in the Union is less clear: the party leadership absolutely wants to maintain the debt brake, but some prime ministers can very well imagine a reform – also because the missing billions do not make their own government activities any easier.
Before the government statement, CDU party leader and parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz left no doubt about his stance: He threatened to take another action before the Federal Constitutional Court if the traffic light decides on an emergency situation in 2024 and wants to suspend the debt brake. “We have no trust,” he said. CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt said: “With us there will be no change to the debt brake.”
The chairwoman of the Green Party parliamentary group, Katharina Dröge, still sees opportunities to find allies within the Union in the plan to reform the debt brake. “There are now many Prime Ministers of the Union who have signaled that they can imagine such a reform, and then we should talk to each other about whether we can come to a solution here,” she said on ZDF.