Lindner needs another five billion euros.
The Traffic Light Coalition is arguing over the financing of the 2025 federal budget. FDP leader Lindner sees a gap of five billion euros. He rules out tax increases for the working middle class. He wants to initially discuss ways to finance this in the federal government.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner sees a gap of several billion euros for the financing of the 2025 federal budget. "The order of magnitude that we are currently discussing is around five billion euros," Lindner said in a ZDF summer interview when asked what was still missing for the budget. There is still enough time to find sustainable solutions, Lindner emphasized.
"I want to emphasize one thing: I want a budget within the framework of the constitution," said the FDP politician. He wants to initially discuss ways to finance the remaining five billion euros in the federal government and not in public. However, he rules out "tax increases for the working middle class in our country."
Regarding the traffic light coalition, Lindner said he was concerned that the SPD faction was questioning many fundamental decisions. This applies, for example, to the issue of the debt brake and also to questions of taxes. "Tax increases are regularly brought into the conversation," Lindner criticized.
There had been a dispute in the traffic light coalition about ways to close the financing gap in the budget. SPD party leader Saskia Esken had criticized Lindner on Friday, saying his behavior was beyond what was acceptable.
Convert subsidies to the railway into equity capital
Lindner does not want to suspend the debt brake for the 2025 budget. However, part of the budget gap, which has been estimated at 17 billion euros in recent days, could be reduced if subsidies to the railway were converted into equity capital of up to 3.6 billion euros, it was reported from the finance ministry. This would be considered a financial transaction that the federal government could finance with new debt that would not fall under the debt brake.
This would leave a gap of 13.4 billion euros. Therefore, the coalition would still have to cut or finance four to five billion euros to reduce the deficit to eight to nine billion euros. This was the target set by the finance ministry. This would correspond to a deficit of less than two percent of the total volume of the budget and would thus be within the framework of previous budgets.
Previous governments had also relied on the fact that some planned expenditures in a year would not be incurred to close initial gaps in the budget execution. The federal government had promised that the draft for the federal budget would be submitted to the Bundestag by August 16.
Federal Finance Minister Lindner proposed converting rail subsidies into equity capital to help bridge part of the budget gap for the 2025 budget. He emphasized the importance of staying within the debt brake and ruled out tax increases for the working middle class, instead seeking sustainable solutions to finance the remaining budget deficit within the federal government.
