Scholz unleashes doubts about the budget reports
An assessment of the plan for the 2025 federal budget has once again caused a stir in the traffic light coalition. Federal Finance Minister Lindner sees the result as giving rise to legal concerns. However, Chancellor Scholz has a completely different opinion.
Even after the budget assessments, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz still believes that strengthening the railway and the motorway company is legally feasible. “It made sense to have the federal government’s options for action reviewed by an assessment of how the railway and the motorways could be financially supported in the budget. The clear result of the legal assessment: This is possible,” the SPD politician told Zeit Online.
The federal government will now discuss the next steps in confidence. Scholz added: “It remains a mystery how the actually clear vote of the legal assessment could have been temporarily misunderstood.”
The budget dispute within the traffic light coalition has flared up again in recent days. The background to this are three projects that are intended to close the financing gap in the budget for the coming year by a total of eight billion euros. Finance Minister Christian Lindner had commissioned evaluations of the plans due to legal and economic concerns.
Unused KfW loans at the centre of the controversy
Johannes Hellermann, a law professor from Bielefeld, and the independent scientific advisory board of the Ministry of Finance expressed doubts about the idea of using the 4.9 billion euros held by KfW for other purposes in the budget. The assessments of the project to pay loans instead of subsidies to the railway and motorway companies were less clear.
Under certain conditions, this would be legally feasible, explained Hellermann. However, the scientific advisory committee sees problems in both cases, as neither the railway nor the motorway could repay the loan from their own income. The railway is already heavily in debt and the motorway currently has no income of its own. This could be changed by changing the law, believes Hellermann.
Lindner’s finance ministry argued that the necessary reforms were complex, politically controversial and impossible to implement before a budget decision. In the case of the railway, the problem could also be solved by injecting capital. Ultimately, however, there would still be a financing gap of around five billion euros that would have to be closed by mid-August. Politicians from the SPD and the Greens accused him of sabotaging the budget agreement.
Despite the legal concerns raised by Federal Finance Minister Lindner, Chancellor Scholz remains optimistic about strengthening the railway and motorway companies. According to Scholz, the legal assessment confirms that the use of unused KfW loans for support is possible, regardless of the controversy surrounding their use for other purposes in the budget.
In light of the budget dispute, the Green Party has accused Finance Minister Lindner of sabotaging the budget agreement because he opposes certain reforms and financing methods.
