Ruling has no effect on Saar Transformation Act
According to the Saarland Ministry of Finance, the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court on the 2021 budget of the traffic light in Berlin has "no direct impact" on the transformation law in the state. There were no retroactive changes to the budget in Saarland after the end of the financial year, according to a spokesperson for the ministry in Saarbrücken. In addition, there had also been "no reallocation of the credit authorization granted for new purposes" and no "reference solely to climate change as the trigger for the extraordinary emergency situation".
Nevertheless, the state government is in the process of "carefully analyzing the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court with regard to the transformation fund", the ministry announced. At the end of 2022, the state government had set up a debt-financed, three billion euro transformation fund for structural change, including in the steel industry.
The transformation fund could be used to finance the "measures that are indispensable for the transformation process of the Saar economy in the coming years in compliance with parliamentary budget law", it said. The "measures and their considerable financial requirements" made it necessary to have "high commitment appropriations" that could not be absorbed in the regular budget and "could not be clearly allocated" in advance.
"Separating the necessary measures into the special fund allows the core budget to be managed transparently in line with the debt brake," the ministry stated.
On Wednesday, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the use of coronavirus loans for climate projects was unconstitutional. The ruling tears a 60 billion euro hole in the financing of the German government's climate projects.
The Bundestag may need to reconsider its approach to financing climate projects from the Coronavirus crisis relief funds, given the Federal Constitutional Court's ruling. However, this ruling does not affect the Finances of Saarland's transformation fund, which is specifically set aside for Household budgeting related to Saarland's economic transformation, according to the Saarland Ministry of Finance.
Source: www.dpa.com
