Lindner explains supplementary budget: “We would rather spend money on the future than on interest”

The Bundestag Presidium has scheduled 68 minutes for the debate on the 2023 supplementary budget this Friday morning. In order to pass it, the government factions must again decide on an emergency because Germany will have to take on more debt than planned. The dispute is not just about the budget for the current year. What the budget for 2024 should look like is still unclear.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) sees the supplementary budget – which was presented extremely hastily – as a response to the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling from two weeks ago. The judges in Karlsruhe had declared parts of the traffic light’s budgetary practice to be unconstitutional. They prohibited the reallocation of Corona loans issued in the past for future climate protection projects. In this case, the judges found that the traffic light violated the debt brake. 197 members of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag had sued.

Lindner is now arguing in the Bundestag that the federal government has actually complied with the debt brake in 2023. However, as is clear after the Karlsruhe ruling, it would have had to take a different constitutional path. “We have received legal clarity, now we are creating legal certainty.”

The traffic light is also concerned: In addition to the incorrectly recorded climate protection funds, the use of loans over 45 billion euros could also have violated the constitution. The traffic light used the money in 2023 to curb energy prices and to support flood victims, but the loans were taken out in 2022. That year the debt brake was officially suspended.

For the coming year, the finance minister indicates, the debt brake will be adhered to and no new emergency will be decided. They want to invest and implement important traffic light projects, but the government has to “deprioritize” others, he said. Lindner does not want to take on new debt simply because the interest rates are currently too high. “We would rather spend money on the future than on interest,” said Lindner.

The Union parliamentary group vice-president and budget politician Mathias Middelberg attested that Lindner at least had “hints of insight”, but otherwise criticized what he saw as incorrect booking practices with regard to the additional pots for the traffic lights. The Chancellor’s argument that the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision affects not only the current government, but also previous governments is not valid. For example, the grand coalition’s Corona aid was always aimed at a specific year, as Karlsruhe is now demanding. “They booked differently,” said Middelberg.

The traffic light had already written the constitutional breach into the coalition agreement in order to tell the “fairy tale of the Iron Christian”, who believes that he can comply with the debt brake by all means and at the same time satisfy the spending wishes of the Greens in terms of climate protection and those of the SPD in terms of social spending. “We are only coming together here because we have to repair your breach of the constitution,” said Middelberg.

What will happen next in 2024 is still completely unclear

The traffic light factions probably don’t have to fear a lawsuit for the supplementary budget for 2023 and the renewed emergency situation. CDU leader Friedrich Merz announced this. However, legal trouble could threaten again in 2024, as there are still many question marks for the coming year.

The FDP has made it clear several times that it wants to comply with the debt brake. Finance Minister Lindner announced that 17 billion euros were missing that would have to be saved in 2024. The Greens and SPD would like to abolish or at least reform the debt brake so that higher investments would be possible. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Union are trying to appear united and advocate for the debt brake. However, some CDU prime ministers have already signaled that they too can imagine reform. Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner criticized the brakes most clearly – for which he received clear criticism from Merz in the Bundestag.