Brandenburg wants to secure aid package

Budget judgment - Brandenburg wants to secure aid package

Brandenburg is reacting to the Federal Constitutional Court's budget ruling and wants to secure its aid package of up to two billion euros for local authorities, businesses and families, for example. To this end, the state parliament is to separately declare an extraordinary emergency situation for 2024 as a result of the war in Ukraine. This was announced on Tuesday by the coalition parties of the SPD, CDU and Greens, who will submit a corresponding motion to parliament in December.

Finance Minister Katrin Lange (SPD) is also preparing a supplementary budget for 2024, i.e. an amendment to the existing budget. This is intended to secure measures from the Brandenburg package as a result of the Karlsruhe budget ruling. "It's about technical adjustments, not sums that are added on top," said Lange.

The Brandenburg state parliament had declared an extraordinary emergency for 2023 and 2024 together so that up to two billion euros in new debt could be raised via the Brandenburg package to deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis. This is no longer permissible following the ruling from Karlsruhe, said CDU parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann. Therefore, the declaration of emergency for 2024 is to be repeated so that the aid package is not declared unconstitutional. The AfD parliamentary group is taking legal action against the Brandenburg package and a decision is expected next year.

According to Redmann, financial cuts are also to be expected. It remained unclear on Tuesday what these will look like after the planned measures have been reviewed in accordance with the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court. The Brandenburg package will be smaller and borrowing will be reduced, Redmann said.

The Brandenburg package is part of the 2023/2024 double budget, with funds flowing to local authorities, hospitals, nursery parents, schools, universities, sports clubs and the expansion of civil protection, for example. The measures financed must always be directly related to the declared emergency.

SPD parliamentary group leader Daniel Keller assumes that most of the measures will be reliably implemented. It is important to rule out any risk so that the citizens of Brandenburg can also be financially relieved in 2024, said Benjamin Raschke, leader of the Greens parliamentary group.

Finance Minister Lange now wants to carefully examine the justification for determining an emergency situation. The measures must be suitable for overcoming the crisis, she said.

The determination of an emergency situation is a prerequisite for the suspension of the debt brake. This is currently being discussed in the federal government for the current year. Finance Minister Lange said: "The debt brake is a fair-weather regulation and has fallen out of time."

In its ruling, the Federal Constitutional Court had declared the reallocation of 60 billion euros in the 2021 budget to the Climate and Transformation Fund null and void. The money had been approved as a coronavirus loan, but was to be used retrospectively for climate protection and the modernization of the economy. At the same time, the judges ruled that the state was not allowed to set aside emergency loans for later years. The federal government has been in a budget crisis ever since. The billion-euro shortfall could also have consequences for Brandenburg, for example for planned climate protection projects.