The federal cabinet approved the draft for a second supplementary budget for 2021 on Monday. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) said: “This is a signal of our ability to act, and it is an expression of the will to shape things.” Specifically, it is about using unused credit authorizations totaling 60 billion euros, which were intended to fight pandemic, instead for climate protection and for investments in the transformation of the economy. To this end, the funds are being shifted to the energy and climate fund, which is to be expanded into a “climate and transformation fund”.
The SPD, the Greens and the FDP had agreed on this approach in the coalition negotiations. In the talks, the FDP in particular insisted that the debt brake would have to be adhered to again from 2023. The SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, had made it very important that the new government should invest heavily in climate protection and digitization. With the budgetary trick of reallocating unused loans and using them for investments in the coming years, the coalition partners are now creating a financial cushion beyond the debt brake. Due to the emergency situation caused by the Corona crisis, the exception rule from the debt brake will apply again in 2021 and 2022, before new debt is to be reduced again in 2023.
Lindner emphasized that the planned net borrowing of 240 billion euros will not be exceeded. “No new debts will be taken on, that’s important to me.” However, he did not mention that the government could alternatively have waived the unused loans – which would have reduced new borrowing.
Criticism from the Federal Audit Office
Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) praised: “We can use the funds to leverage investments in which economic recovery and climate protection go hand in hand.” Criticism, however, came from the Federal Audit Office. Its President Kay Scheller told the SZ: “Credit authorizations are only valid for the current year for which they are required.” If they were used for future budget years, this would run counter to the principles of “annuality, budgetary clarity and truthfulness”. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also said: “Shadow budgets are cause for concern.”
Lindner justified the procedure by saying that necessary investments that had not been made due to the pandemic would be financed. Among other things, the “entry into the hydrogen economy” should be made possible. At the same time, he expressed the expectation “that possibly even fewer loans will have to be taken out than originally planned”. The President of the Court of Auditors, Scheller, apparently finds this unconvincing. The necessary connection of the supplementary budget to the emergency situation of the corona pandemic is not apparent. The Bundestag will discuss the supplementary budget on Thursday.