Tuesday, April 06, 2021
Many billions of euros unused
Money from the stimulus package remains lying around
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One way out of the corona crisis can be to invest more in the economy. However, Germany is pushing ahead with billions in funds made available by the federal government for 2020. Almost every ministry is affected.
In the Corona year 2020, 71.3 billion euros were available in the federal budget for urgently needed investments, of which 21 billion euros remained unused, reported the “Augsburger Allgemeine”, citing figures from the Federal Ministry of Finance. The list of investments not made therefore extends to almost all ministries.
For example, part of the 2020 economic stimulus package should flow into the expansion and maintenance of the federal motorways – around 680 million euros could have been spent and planned, in fact, not even half of the money was spent, the newspaper wrote. Around 350 million euros remained in the state treasury. Considerable under-spending was therefore also recorded for planned investments for the hydrogen strategy. Around 200 million that were available in the 2020 economic stimulus package had not been spent.
According to the figures, around 100 million euros were not used in the investment funding for the barn conversion. It is also a measure from the economic stimulus package 2020, the money should, according to the wishes of the CDU Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner, “guarantee animal welfare”.
With the “economic measures forest and wood” 130 million euros remained unused in the cash register, with broadband expansion 285 million euros. Around 40 million euros were made available in 2020 for increasing the attractiveness of train stations, of which, according to the information, around 27 million euros have not been paid out.
In the opposition, the government’s financial conduct is watched with a shake of the head. “The USA, China and many of our European neighbors invest significantly more than Germany,” said the Green budget expert Ekin Deligöz of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. The federal government, however, does not even manage to guarantee the outflow of funds for the planned investments. But investments are needed to come out of the corona crisis strongly.
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