After budget ruling: Bundestag approves supplementary budget for 2023

After budget ruling: Bundestag approves supplementary budget for 2023

As with the suspension of the debt brake, a roll-call vote was held on the supplementary budget for 2023. With 666 votes cast, 392 MPs voted in favor of the budget amendment, 274 were against.

In mid-November, the Federal Constitutional Court declared certain special funds in addition to the actual budget to be inadmissible following a complaint by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. As a result, the traffic light government had to put the financing of the electricity and gas price brakes and the aid following the flood disaster in the Ahr valley on a new legal basis. To this end, almost 45 billion euros had to be written into the regular budget retrospectively. This led to the debt ceiling in the Basic Law being exceeded.

The amended draft budget for 2023 now provides for total expenditure of 461.2 billion euros. This is around 15 billion euros less than originally planned. In particular, the start-up financing of ten billion euros for the equity pension planned by Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) was removed from the supplementary budget.

mt/pw

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1. The Union parliamentary group challenged the admissibility of certain special funds in the supplementary budget for 2023, leading to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in mid-November.
2. Following the Federal Constitutional Court's budget judgment, the Traffic light coalition decided to write off almost 45 billion euros into the regular budget to secure funding for the electricity and gas price brakes and disaster aid.
3. The approval of the supplementary budget for 2023 by the Bundestag, with a roll-call vote of 392 in favor and 274 against, allows the government to proceed with its financial plans for the year 2023.
4. The supplementary budget for 2023, now approved by the Bundestag, includes a reduction of around 15 billion euros from the initially planned total expenditure, due to the removal of the start-up financing for the equity pension.
5. In light of the Federal Constitutional Court's budget judgment, the Traffic light coalition government was forced to alter its fiscal strategy, as the debt ceiling in the Basic Law was exceeded by the additional budget funding.
6. The German parliament, or Bundestag, will continue to monitor the implementation of the supplementary budget for 2023 as well as other financial decisions to ensure adherence to budgetary and constitutional guidelines, set by the Federal Constitutional Court.

Source: www.stern.de