Sparplans - Link demands broad societal debate on budget
The Berlin Left is calling for broad participation of the city community in the debate over upcoming billion-dollar cuts in the state budget and future financial politics. "The city must simply accept this situation in this difficult budget situation," said Fraktionschefin Anne Helm of the German Press Agency.
"Unfortunately, that's not happening." Instead, Schwarz-Rot is pushing everything back. "First, long negotiations take place in back rooms. And then they try somehow to confront the city with these cuts without allowing it to make priorities." The city parliament is also being left out.
Helm considers this a major problem. There is no focus and no plan that beneficiaries of the funds, such as districts or social institutions, can orient themselves to. It's unclear which tasks will continue to be funded. "The result is that we are currently experiencing great concern everywhere, especially among free providers, in social infrastructure, in neighborhood projects, and so on, about how it will continue in the future."
Helm opposes lowering standards
The cuts in standards proposed by the CDU and SPD are considered a disaster by Helm. "This would have disastrous consequences, for example, for children and people with disabilities. It would not only lead to a deterioration in quality but also to a reduction of the already overloaded offers."
The volume of the state budget has grown significantly since the Corona years to approximately 40 billion Euros per year. The coalition now wants to reduce it gradually. After initial savings in the current year, there are plans for three billion Euros in savings for 2025 and five billion Euros for 2026. How this will be achieved, CDU and SPD want to clarify by autumn.
Schulze expects privatizations
The co-fraktionsvorsitzende Tobias Schulze warns of a "new wave of privatizations" in public infrastructure. "If investments are no longer made where they must be made, this will lead to the sale of public infrastructure."
Schulze referred to the existing maintenance backlog, for example, in the transport sector, hospitals, schools, or in culture. "Everywhere where there are great maintenance needs and financial needs, Schwarz-Rot will raise the privatization question," he believes.
Without massive investments in the areas of health, education, or housing, Berlin is facing an infrastructure crisis similar to that around the turn of the millennium. "Then we will have a city that no longer functions in three, four, or five years."
Alternative ideas
The Left fraction has ideas from Schulze to prevent such a scenario and privatizations: "One must relieve the investment budget of the public companies through transaction credits so that one can save on the consumer budget," he explained.
Possible options could be infrastructure companies for the university sector, for accommodating refugees, or for school construction. These could then take out loans for important future investments - which, due to the debt brake, the Left wants to abolish in general, cannot be financed through the regular state budget.
This budget, in turn, could be relieved in this way from the pressure to save, as large investments no longer have to be financed from this pot. In the following, there would be more money for so-called consumptive expenses, for example, in the social sector. So financial experts distinguish between consumptive and investment expenses.
- The CDU and SPD, along with the House of Deputies, are aiming to reduce the state budget gradually, with plans for three billion Euros in savings for 2025 and five billion Euros for 2026.
- The Left fraction in Berlin has proposed an alternative idea to prevent privatizations and an infrastructure crisis, suggesting the use of transaction credits to relieve the investment budget of public companies.
- Helm, from The Left, strongly opposes the proposed cuts in standards by the CDU and SPD, stating that it would have disastrous consequences for children and people with disabilities.
- The German Press Agency reported that Helm considers it a major problem that the city parliament is being left out of the debate over the budget cuts, leading to uncertainty among various sectors.
- Schulze, from The Left, warned of a "new wave of privatizations" in public infrastructure, citing the existing maintenance backlog in sectors such as transport, hospitals, schools, and culture.
