The cabinet has agreed in the budget negotiations for the year 2024.
(Photo: Reuters)
Berlin After months of dispute, the federal government has agreed on a draft budget for the coming year. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is planning new debt of 16.6 billion euros for 2024, according to government circles. The budget is to be decided in the cabinet on Wednesday.
Lindner will thus comply with the debt brake in the coming year. In order to achieve this, savings in the budget were necessary. Lindner had wrestled with his ministerial colleagues for weeks, many did not want to accept the spending limits. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had to get involved in the negotiations and hold some budget talks with Lindner and the respective ministers.
The savings achieved amount to 3.5 billion in each of the years 2024 and 2025, according to government circles. All departments with the exception of the Ministry of Defense have to contribute – albeit to different extents. Investment and social spending are excluded.
Since tax revenue is no longer rising as strongly in view of the economic situation and interest expenditure is growing at the same time, there has long been a financing gap of 20 billion euros in the budget. The savings made by the departments of 3.5 billion euros only make a relatively small contribution to closing the gap.
Lindner resorts to some rebookings to get the remaining amount together. A special fund for the digital infrastructure will be dissolved and integrated into the normal budget. That brings in 4.8 billion euros. At the same time, expenses for the microelectronics sector are to be financed from the KTF climate and transformation fund in the future, which will relieve the budget by five billion euros.
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A subsidy of one billion euros to long-term care insurance will be removed. There are also savings on parental allowance. The government also wants to cut subsidies. Exactly which one is still open. For the time being, therefore, there is only one savings target in the budget: two billion euros. Together with other small measures, the required 20 billion euros will come together.
Budget 2024: 25 percent more spending than before the corona pandemic
In total, Lindner plans to spend 445.7 billion euros in 2024. Measured against this, the savings contribution of the departments of 3.5 billion euros is relatively small. The fact that the traffic light coalition still argued about it for weeks is due to a fundamental change in the budget: In recent years there has been more and more leeway, also because the debt brake was suspended during the corona pandemic and the energy crisis.
Spending in the record year 2021 amounted to 573 billion euros. Since then they have been falling again. If Lindner is planning 445.7 billion euros for the coming year, then that is around six percent less than in the current year.
However, the total is still significantly higher than in 2019, the year before the corona crisis. The federal government spent 356 billion euros – around 25 percent less than is now planned for 2024.
According to Lindner’s plans, the traffic light will also have to make further savings in the coming years. Between 2025 and 2027 there is still a “need for action” totaling 14.4 billion euros. In other words, it is still unclear where this money will come from. In the coming year, another budget dispute is likely to be imminent.
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