MOSCOW: German Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (pix) said on Wednesday that the country’s yet unadopted 2024 budget has a potential hole of 17 billion euros (US$18.65 billion), reported Sputnik.
“Regarding the 2024 budget, I proceed from the fact that we need to make a decision on approximately 17 billion euros. For comparison, the federal budget as a whole is 450 billion euros,“ Lindner said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF when asked about a potential hole in the 2024 budget against the background of the current budget crisis in the country.
The German Federal Ministry of Finance has earlier stopped financing additional government expenses until the end of 2023. The decision will affect almost all spending of the country’s various ministries, including financing measures to keep gas and electricity prices from growing and the Economic Stabilisation Fund.
Additional expenses in the future will be possible only as exceptions and after the approval of the Ministry of Finance to avoid an unbearable burden on the budget in the future.
The Constitutional Court of Germany ruled earlier in the month that the move by the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Free Democrats — known as the “traffic light” coalition — to transfer unused pandemic-era loans to a climate fund would violate the debt brake rule, which is a constitutionally enshrined cap on new government borrowing. As a result, 60 billion euros (US$65 billion) was wiped from the government’s spending plan for 2024.
The government will be able to postpone the effect of the “debt brake” and again gain access to the additional burden on the budget if it ex post facto declares an emergency for the entire 2023 or carries out reforms. The government is currently offering that the country’s parliament declare an emergency. –Bernama
