Covenant - Funding pot for climate-friendly new builds is empty
The funding pot for the program for climate-friendly new builds is empty. As announced by the Federal Building Ministry in Berlin, no new applications for the program can be submitted to the state development bank KfW due to exhausted funds. So far, more than 18,000 funding approvals have been granted and around 46,000 climate-friendly housing units have been funded.
Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) said: "The demand for our new-build funding has exceeded our expectations. After just three months, the funding pot for climate-friendly new builds was almost empty, so we had to increase it to almost two billion euros." New applications could be submitted as soon as the 2024 federal budget comes into force.
The coalition leaders had reached an agreement in principle on how to plug the billions of euros in the 2024 budget. The budget is expected to be passed by the Bundestag in January.
Harsh criticism from the construction industry and opposition
The construction industry criticized that the "funding disaster" was continuing. Peter Hübner, President of the Federation of the German Construction Industry, said that by suspending funding for new construction, the federal government was proving that it had learned nothing from the mistakes of last year's funding freeze. "A run on subsidies at the end of the year is not a success. It shows the great uncertainty on the market. Nobody knows what will happen next and everyone is trying to secure the last scraps." According to Hübner, it is already a reality that every second company in the housing construction sector is suffering from a lack of orders and the housing shortage in Germany is growing from week to week.
Jan-Marco Luczak, construction policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, spoke of the biggest housing crisis in Germany for decades. "But instead of taking decisive countermeasures and breaking the downward spiral, the traffic lights are arguing and delaying important decisions to make building faster and cheaper. Now the funding for climate-friendly new builds is also being scrapped." This is a slap in the face for companies and private builders.
Read also:
- Why there is still no EU funding for green Saar steel
- 3 billion Saar Fund is unconstitutional
- Politicians at a loss after shock news
- Court of Auditors criticizes the state government's debt plan
Source: www.stern.de
