"There's a huge gap coming up"
For the traffic light coalition, it means after the budget agreement on Friday: taking a deep breath. But the opposition is not impressed by the new plans - to put it mildly. CDU finance minister Middelberg sees the main conflict of the coalition not solved.
ntv.de: Mr. Middelberg, the traffic light has once again reached a turning point and agreed on a budget. How do you feel about it? Thumbs up or thumbs down?
Mathias Middelberg: That was a typical sham agreement. Just like we have often experienced from the traffic light. They focused on the needs of their partners rather than the needs of the state. They only agreed on key points. As soon as these are now concretely turned into legislative drafts, the conflict in the traffic light coalition will break out again.
Why? When Chancellor Scholz, Finance Minister Lindner, and Economics Minister Habeck presented the result, they seemed quite optimistic. The message was: We have succeeded.
For me, that looked quite strained. The question of adhering to the debt brake was not even addressed. SPD faction leader Mützenich made that clear on the day of the agreement. Already some traffic light politicians are questioning points from the growth initiative. Among the Greens, some say the tax adjustment in relation to inflation is not feasible. That's about 23 billion euros over several years.
You seemed to like the complications with citizens' income.
That's right, sanctions, reporting requirements, and rules on affordability and solvency should be tightened. I'm curious, though, if the coalition factions will ultimately pass this in the Bundestag.
Do you have doubts?
Yes. The crucial thing is to motivate citizens' income recipients to take up work. For that, the entire package must come in its entire consistency. I don't trust the traffic light coalition with that. Regarding the decisive point - the wage gap between the net income of the low-wage earner and the height of citizens' income - the traffic light coalition, in fact, does nothing about it. So it will become difficult to bring more citizens' income recipients into work.
Lindner said they had understood a new common basis for government action.
I see it differently. They're just trying to fill in the trenches between SPD and Greens on one side and FDP on the other with money. They are emptying out the debt brake completely. In the two years, they will mobilize almost 100 billion euros in new debt. In addition to all possible accounting tricks. The debt service is being recalculated and stretched over several years. That saves four billion euros per year. They are shifting budget reserves from one budget to the next. They are leaving the 30-billion-euro gap in the Bundeswehr wide open. In addition, there is the global under-expenditure of 16 billion euros. All these "creative accounting tricks" - SPD faction leader Mützenich rightly called them that - are being mobilized to finally be able to say: We have agreed.
What's behind the "global under-expenditure"?
That's a nice name for money we don't have. If you order 50 euros worth of food in a restaurant but only have 34 euros in your pocket, you have a global under-expenditure of 16 euros.
The number 16 fits, as the global budget deficit in the household amounts to 16 billion Euro. How does that fit together, to say: We have agreed, but we still lack 16 billion Euro?
That doesn't make sense at all. Christian Lindner doesn't know where to get the money from. Half of this hole should be closed through the highway agency and the railway. They are allowed to borrow eight billion Euro outside the debt brake. But where does the other eight billion come from? That's completely open. He simply hopes that the ministries will not fully spend their budgets - a simple hope. But, and that's the scary part, nowhere in the budget is anything saved in reality. The turning point is not happening, not in defense, but also not in other areas. No reallocation of priorities. Instead, the outdated junk from the coalition agreement is being financed further.
Must the global budget deficit be eliminated if the budget becomes law?
No. It has often been the case in the past that there were global budget deficits. But that we have planned such a huge deficit of 16 billion Euro, I don't know about that.
The cabinet is supposed to adopt the legislative proposal on July 17, and from the beginning of September, the Bundestag will negotiate on the budget law. Is it just about small things now?
In the Bundestag, it will still be about the big picture. If the so-called growth initiative is cut again, then the expected growth of 0.5 percent will not occur. The measures regarding citizens' income, the tax relief for companies, and the inflation adjustment for the working population are indeed correct. But if all this is not fully implemented, then nothing will happen in terms of growth and tax revenues will continue to decline. The likelihood, however, that the traffic light factions - as before - will quarrel about everything, is high.
When they say our measures will bring 0.5 percent more economic growth - is that more than just a hope?
That's just a principle of hope. It could also turn out differently if certain, positively assumed effects do not materialize in practice. Growth with this traffic light has always been weaker than forecasted before.
The defense budget is growing, but only by about one billion. That's something like an inflation adjustment. But starting in 2028, it should increase dramatically.
That's the next billion-dollar hole. A huge gap is coming towards us. In 2028, we will have to allocate 80 billion Euro to the defense budget, as the Chancellor himself has said. Currently, it is 53 billion. Where the missing 27 billion are supposed to come from, is written in the stars. This government is acting according to the motto: After us, the deluge.
Scholz said on Friday: I am campaigning for "this need for action." What does that mean?
That means: The next government must solve this problem. That's exactly the point. This coalition is not capable of understanding savings.
Where would the Union save?
We see the greatest savings opportunities with Citizen's Money. This amounts to around 50 billion Euro now, more than every tenth Euro from the Federal Budget. We need to bring more people from Citizen's Money into employment. In terms of asylum and refugee cause prevention, we see potential. With a strict limitation of asylum immigration, a lot of money could be saved. Point three are the federal programs of the Federal Government. There are over 400 of them. Some, like "Living Democracy," are particularly inefficient and should be abolished. However, these issues are not even being addressed by the Coalition.
The Greens do not want to limit asylum immigration, and the SPD does not really want to tackle Citizen's Money.
They have also suggested scrapping the Digital Pact School. Are you going to try and get that into the budget in the Bundestag?
No. With the term "Digital Pact School," it wasn't about reducing investments in education or short-term savings. But we must critically examine the task distribution between the Federal Government and the States. The States now have higher tax shares than the Federal Government. It used to be the other way around. At the same time, there is constant talk of financial injections from the Federal Government in areas where the Federal Government has no jurisdiction. Both the Federal Government and the States need to come to fundamental terms on this.
New elections are off the table for now. But if the Union is the strongest force in the next Bundestag election, with whom would you rather negotiate a coalition, if the Greens or SPD?
We need a real turnaround, a genuine shift in this country. We need to make this clear to the people. We need more growth and less bureaucracy. We must realign the welfare state. I believe that for a "Germany is back on track" program, they could win over many people. . And the message must be: For this, we need a strong CDU. With whom we then work together will depend on it.
Interview with Mathias Middelberg, Volker Petersen spoke
Based on the given text, here are two sentences that contain the given words and follow the narrative:
- During the interview, Mathias Middelberg, the CDU finance minister, expressed concerns about the budget agreement, stating that the main conflict of the coalition has not been sufficiently addressed since Middelberg is from Middelberg, a city in Lower Saxony.
- In the opposition's view, the Gap created by the budget agreement between the traffic light coalition and their parties, including the CDU, is a significant concern in politics, potentially leading to future conflicts.
