Construction companies are currently in a real crisis, said Stoch, who is also the parliamentary group leader in the state parliament. “We urgently need housing for people who are already here and for skilled workers who we urgently need. And we need construction activity to keep construction companies alive and to secure jobs in the construction industry.” For these reasons, the state must now invest money. “Preferably from the current budget. If this overloads the current budget, we must think about other ways of financing it.”
Kretschmann for special fund for hydrogen and rail
The SPD leader is responding to a demand from Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens). He recently called for special funds for urgently needed investments in infrastructure. “We need the possibility of building up a special fund through loans that can only be used for very specific investment purposes,” Kretschmann told the German Press Agency. As an example, he cited the construction of a hydrogen network, which must be addressed urgently.
Open detailed view SPD leader Andreas Stoch supports Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann’s call for special funds for important investments – and he goes even further. (Archive image) (Photo: Bernd Weißbrod/dpa)
“We have almost no green hydrogen today, that is still a thing of the future. But there is no doubt that it will come. Then you need these networks and whoever doesn’t have them will immediately run into enormous competition problems,” said Kretschmann. But because there will only be relevant quantities of green hydrogen in ten years, there will be no returns on investments in the network until then. “For this we need the opportunity to take out loans that can be repaid over a relatively long period of time.”
Stoch: Also look at the country
Kretschmann cited the railway as another example. “The traffic light coalition has inherited an enormous backlog of repairs because no investment has been made for decades. This cannot simply be resolved in a budget,” said the Prime Minister.
SPD leader Stoch is calling on Kretschmann to set aside special funds for the state as well. “The Prime Minister should not just point the finger at everyone else on this issue, but should also look at the state of Baden-Württemberg, for which he bears political responsibility, and consider what he could do with such an instrument,” said Stoch. In his view, Baden-Württemberg should also set up a fund in order to be able to start making important investments in infrastructure.
