"With 1000 billion in tax revenue, there can be no emergency"
The German government needs to make savings, and Friedrich Merz has a few proposals that he reveals on Maybrit Illner. The CDU leader does not want to touch the debt brake. And he has the Finance Minister's closest advisor on his side.
It is a sometimes heated discussion that top politicians from the government and opposition have on Thursday evening on ZDF's Maybrit Illner. Once again, it was about the budget policy of the traffic light coalition. First of all, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is no longer necessarily calling for new elections next year. "That now very much depends on the federal government. The federal government has to make decisions and then we will see what happens in the coming days and weeks," he says.
According to Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the federal budget for 2024 is 17 billion euros short following the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court. SPD leader Saskia Esken does not yet know how this will affect the budget. Lindner will present this next week, she is sure. Deputy Bundestag President Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the Greens also has no idea what the budget will look like. Like Esken, she is calling for the debt brake to be suspended once again next year. The deputy editor-in-chief of "Die Welt", Robin Alexander, can imagine: "We can find 17 billion." Unlike top CDU/CSU politicians, he believes that Germany is not in a national crisis. He says: "We are in a veritable government crisis." Merz agrees.
Merz in favor of the sale of Deutsche Bahn's logistics division
CDU leader Merz criticizes the demands of the SPD and Greens to declare an emergency in the coming year and thus suspend the debt brake once again. "With 1000 billion euros in tax revenue and a federal budget of 425 billion euros - there can be no emergency if you have to save 17 billion euros elsewhere." Merz had already said where he wanted to make savings: heating law, basic child protection, citizens' income. But on Thursday he brought other ideas into play: the sale of "silverware", i.e. state-owned companies.
He is not the first to do so: some experts had already openly considered the sale of state shares in Deutsche Telekom, which could be used to completely plug the budget gap for next year. Merz brings the company DB Schenker into play. Schenker AG joined Deutsche Bahn a good twenty years ago, which runs its logistics division under its name, with the exception of rail freight transport. Like Deutsche Bahn itself, DB Schenker is a state-owned company. Merz: "By selling this company, you could expand the rail network for years to come. But this coalition doesn't want to sell the company because they think they are the better entrepreneurs with one of the largest logistics groups in the world. There is endless potential." Merz also sees this in the EU's Next Generation Fund, from which Germany is entitled to 30 billion euros. Only a fraction of this has been drawn down so far. Merz: "The question is whether we are burdening our children and grandchildren with even more debt. And at this point, we simply say no, at least as long as we have so many other opportunities to use it."
Reform of the debt brake
Merz rejects a reform of the debt brake. However, Göhring-Eckardt warns that this is important. The idea: because the debt brake only gives the federal government limited scope to take out loans, these loans should only be used for investments in the future. Current expenditure such as pensions or citizens' benefits should be paid from tax revenue. Investments for the future include, for example, new schools or the expansion of roads and the rail network, says Göring-Eckardt. Above all, investments for the economy must be guaranteed.
Lars Feld takes a very different view. The economist appears briefly on the show. He is Finance Minister Lindner's "personal representative for macroeconomic development" - and a fan of the debt brake. He praises it for allowing a great deal of flexibility. And it enables high subsidies for the economy. But Feld is not convinced "that the subsidies being paid here are the right way forward." He criticizes state support for companies that want to invest in German locations: "The question is: why don't they invest in Germany of their own accord?" He gives the answer himself: For many companies, investing in Germany as a business location would not pay off without subsidies.
Feld would not support energy-intensive companies so that they stay in Germany. "I do think that we also have a number of companies in the energy-intensive economy that will remain in the country due to further specialization and make further investments." Although the departure of certain companies would mean that jobs would disappear from Germany, the demographic change in the population means that fewer people need jobs anyway. Instead of subsidizing companies, Feld calls for better conditions for their relocation: lower energy prices or less bureaucracy. He has another recipe for climate policy: "For one thing, I am aware that even in pragmatic situations you have to do what I was taught as regulatory bullshit: pay subsidies. But the leading role in climate policy must be played by CO2 pricing."
The discussion on this topic will not stop. It will reach a new climax this morning. The German government will then have the supplementary budget for 2023 debated by the Bundestag.
In the budget policy discussion, Friedrich Merz opposes suspending the debt brake due to the available tax revenue and budget surplus, stating that an emergency is not present with 1000 billion in tax revenue and a federal budget of 425 billion euros. Despite Merz's proposals for savings in areas like the heating law and basic child protection, Christian Lindner's Finance Ministry is currently 17 billion euros short following the Federal Constitutional Court's ruling. Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the Greens shares Lindner's call for another suspension of the debt brake in 2023, arguing that the limit on loan-taking should only be used for future investments.
Source: www.ntv.de
