Basic child security will be discussed in the first reading on Thursday. Family Minister Paus sees this as a milestone for her social policy flagship project – but according to the employment agency, the planned start at the beginning of 2025 cannot be achieved.
The Federal Employment Agency (BA) has predicted a delayed start to the planned basic child benefit. According to Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus, the new benefits for children and families should start at the beginning of 2025. The employment agency believes that at most a gradual entry from July 2025 is feasible.
BA board member Vanessa Ahuja explained: “We can handle this major task of basic child security, but we need sufficient lead time from the point of approval by the Bundestag and Bundesrat.” The BA can therefore probably start basic child security benefits from July 2025 at the earliest and initially only gradually.
Basic child protection is discussed by Parliament
It is not yet possible to predict when the basic child protection will be decided by the Bundestag and Bundesrat. The project, which has long been controversial, especially between the FDP and the Greens, is only at the very beginning of parliamentary negotiations. The bill will be discussed in its first reading on Thursday, and an expert hearing in the family committee is planned for next Monday.
The start of the consultations is an important step for the family minister’s long-demanded but also much-discussed plan. Only after months of open dispute did the federal government give the green light to the project, which is intended to bundle several state benefits from child benefit to citizen’s benefit to child allowance for low-income families. Ultimately, the government agreed on financing of 2.4 billion euros.
“Basic child welfare will make the lives of so many families in Germany better,” said Paus. This is “a paradigm shift.” Basically, basic security is intended to make it easier for families to receive benefits. In this regard, Paus spoke of a change from a “family obligation to collect” to a “state obligation to deliver”.
Open questions make concrete implementation difficult
However, the long road to agreement means that the planned date of entry into force of the basic child security at the beginning of 2025 “can no longer be achieved by the BA for financial, organizational, infrastructural and personnel reasons,” said the authority in a statement Reuters news agency available. Responsibility for basic security should lie with the family fund located within the Federal Agency.
However, this only sees the possibility of concrete implementation planning once the text of the law has been passed by the Federal Council. For example, it has to recruit and, above all, train staff for 5,355 full-time equivalents, the statement says.
The BA also sees numerous unresolved points in the draft law. It remains unclear to what extent the approximately 400,000 young people who are no longer entitled to citizen’s benefit due to their own right to basic child support should be cared for and placed: “This must be regulated in the parliamentary process in order to prevent many young people from starting their careers endanger,” says the BA.