Next year, the FDP politician wants to significantly reduce national debt and only take on 35 billion euros.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The federal government will incur less debt this year than originally planned. Instead of the planned deficit of EUR 139.6 billion, the federal government will have taken out loans of EUR 125 billion by the end of the year. The Handelsblatt learned this from several representatives of the federal government and the traffic light parties.
The final budget will be announced in January, these are preliminary figures. “But it would be very surprising if the debt exceeded the 130 billion euro mark,” government circles said.
The reason for the slightly lower level of debt is, among other things, investment funds that have not been used. As in previous years, numerous funds were not called up due to administrative bottlenecks or a lack of demand. In addition, despite the energy crisis, tax revenues were significantly better than expected. The tax estimate in November predicted a tax plus for the federal government of almost eight billion euros for this year compared to the May estimate.
In its first budget draft, the traffic light had provided for borrowing of around 100 billion euros. The reason was the corona pandemic. After Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) launched a debt-financed supplementary budget of 40 billion euros to finance, among other things, the energy relief packages and the admission of refugees from Ukraine.
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Next year, Lindner wants to significantly reduce debt and only take on 35 billion euros. This would mean that the federal government would comply with the debt brake for the first time since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
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