From Andrea Thomas
BERLIN (Dow Jones) – Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz expects only moderate changes in the federal government’s planned borrowing despite the ongoing corona pandemic and financial aid for affected companies.
“We have planned to raise a little more than 300 billion euros for the year 2020 and 2021 together. That will stay that way, even with slight modifications in the future,” said Scholz after consultations with the world’s 20 leading industrial and emerging countries.
“We can already see that we will probably not have to spend everything we have in terms of credit authorization for 2020 and that we will have to spend more for 2021. But the corridor will not be exactly the same, but will remain roughly the same.”
The Bild newspaper had previously reported that Scholz wanted to take on more than 160 billion euros in new debt next year. So far, only around 96 billion euros in new loans were planned. As can be seen from a submission for the final deliberations planned on Thursday in the budget committee of the Bundestag on the budget for the coming year, the costs for economic aid will increase as a result of the corona standstill, according to Bild.
According to the picture, the finance minister is now planning almost 40 billion euros for entrepreneurs suffering from the partial lockdown. Scholz apparently assumes that the Corona bridging aid will have to be extended beyond November, the newspaper concludes.
In addition, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) receives significantly more money than previously planned. For example, an additional 2 billion euros are planned for the extension of the compensation payments to hospitals.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 22, 2020 13:10 ET (18:10 GMT)
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