The headlines in the boulevard were hymn-like when the City Councilor for Finance Peter Hanke announced the city’s zero deficit in 2019: “Thank you, Hanke!” Could be read.
Now, a corona crisis later, things suddenly look very different with the Vienna budget. A “rigid austerity policy” will and should not exist in the next few years, announced Hanke at the budget presentation yesterday, Thursday. It is now a matter of escaping the crisis by investing.
This should succeed, according to Hanke, with a “new type of communal economy”. For the first time in history, the city government is presenting a double budget for two years. That, so the promise, creates even more plannability and flexibility.
The deficit path is flattening out
The total budget is 33.3 billion euros – split almost equally between 2022 and 2023. Next year it will be 16.7 billion euros, in 2023 it will be 16.6 billion euros. That is more than the city occupies, but the deficit path is flattening out.
In 2022 the projected minus is 1.7 billion euros, in 2023 it will be 1.4 billion euros. Overall, the city’s debt level climbs to 12 billion euros.
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