justice
Supplementary budget under scrutiny: “heavy program”
A budget decision has landed before the Federal Constitutional Court. photo
© Uli Deck/dpa
Money that was intended to cushion the consequences of Corona but was not needed could now be used for climate protection. Germany’s highest court is examining whether this is constitutional.
In emergencies such as a pandemic, the state can take out loans despite the debt brake – but can it also reallocate funds to combat the Corona crisis into funds for climate protection? The Federal Constitutional Court dealt with this question on Wednesday. “We have a tough program ahead of us,” said the chairwoman of the Second Senate, Doris König, at the beginning of the hearing in Karlsruhe.
Above all, it was discussed whether the credit authorization may also cover economic consequences of the crisis and when subsequent budget changes have to be decided. A verdict is not expected for some time. (Az. 2 BvF 1/22)
Subsequent amendment of the 2021 budget
The background is a subsequent change to the 2021 budget. The federal government had initially increased it by 60 billion euros because of the Corona crisis. Because the money was not needed in the end, the federal government consisting of the SPD, Greens and FDP, with the approval of the Bundestag, retrospectively shifted the credit authorization to the so-called Climate and Transformation Fund 2022. On the other hand, 197 members of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group complained.
Union parliamentary group leader Mathias Middelberg said on Wednesday that the debt brake needed a real braking effect so that cash registers were not repeatedly created and uses changed. Even in emergencies, it must be clear where the state’s scope for credit authorizations ends, added the Union’s representative, Karsten Schneider.
On the other hand, Werner Gatzer, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, argued that the corona pandemic was an exceptional emergency situation. The economy has weakened, and private investments should have been initiated. The representative of the federal government, Joachim Wieland, emphasized that it was also about showing the outside world: “We have reserved the money.” This was intended to create a certain amount of reliability for investments.
Critical questions from the Federal Constitutional Court
The Karlsruhe court asked both sides critical questions. The reporting judge Sibylle Kessal-Wulf spoke about the fact that the debt brake is sometimes also a “fun brake”. Judge Peter Müller questioned whether the legislature should be put under “tighter shackles even in an emergency” when the budget is being drawn up by the debt brake.
If the court were to declare the supplementary budget unconstitutional for violating the provisions of the debt brake, the transfer of credit authorizations would be invalid. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said in the Bundestag on Wednesday that this would hit Germany hard in terms of economic policy.
In an urgent decision in November, the highest German court gave the green light for the budget change. The damage would be great if the whole thing were stopped, but it later turned out to be constitutional. At the same time, the Senate noted that constitutional requirements for emergency borrowing by the federal government could have been violated. Now it was about the details.