“The debt brake in its current form is no longer up to date,” says an internal template for the closed meeting of the Bundestag faction, which the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reports on. “The current rigid rules pose a risk to the prosperity of current and future generations because they do not provide enough scope for strong investments in the future.” Therefore, a “budgetary future deal” should be drawn up quickly in the Bundestag, taking into account the recent ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, which prohibited the traffic light coalition from reallocating 60 billion euros in unused Corona aid funds into a climate and transformation fund.
The holes in the double-digit billions that have arisen in the 2024 federal budget alone are to be partially financed through cuts in the agricultural sector, for example. Three SPD Prime Ministers have also clearly positioned themselves against Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), who wants to stick to the gradual abolition of preferential treatment for agricultural diesel despite the protests throughout Germany. Manuela Schwesig (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Dietmar Woidke (Brandenburg) and Stephan Weil (Lower Saxony) are calling for the cuts plans to be completely reversed, and Saarland Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger is also calling for corrections – but Scholz wants the cuts to be approved quickly by the Bundestag. This once again brings the debate about debt rules into focus. With the help of external expertise from science, trade unions and business, the Bundestag faction led by Rolf Mützenich wants to quickly develop a reform proposal for the debt brake. This is also intended to concretize a resolution from the SPD federal party conference in December: This had called for greater scope for debt so that new debates like the current one do not arise every year and, with the help of a reform, companies in the steel and chemical industries, for example, can have planning security for the billion-dollar restructuring towards a climate-neutral economy. “Reducing intergenerational justice to not leaving debts to future generations clearly falls short,” says the concept for the closed meeting of the parliamentary group with its 207 members, which will take place on Thursday and Friday in Berlin. According to the Constitutional Court ruling, emergency loans are now subject to strict annuality, annuality and maturity. “In concrete terms, this means: Transferring emergency loans to subsequent financial years is not legally compliant. Loans for exceptional emergencies must now be used in the same year of the decision and the borrowing.” Crisis management measures lasting several years would either have to be the subject of a new “emergency resolution” every year or be counter-financed in subsequent years through savings elsewhere in the budget. In practice, however, this could lead to a significant “crisis savings effect”. But investments for the benefit of future generations in particular must continue to be sensibly financed through loans. “Foregoing credit-financed investments in the future can be devastating for an economy in the long term,” the paper says. However, a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag would be necessary to reform the debt brake, and even within the coalition, the FDP has so far strictly blocked any weakening of the debt brake.
2024-01-09 11:09:53
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