The Bundestag is discussing the budget for 2025. Even before the debate, there are signs of disagreement. What are the negotiations about?
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- Budget week in Bundestag – this is being discussed”,”position”:”1″,”storyElementPosition”:”8″,”storyElementCount”:”31″}}”>Budget week in the Bundestag – this is being discussed – What spending does the traffic light coalition plan to spend in 2025?
Berlin – After the summer break, the budget week is traditionally on the agenda in the Bundestag. The Greens have already announced that the parliament will “make relevant improvements to the cabinet draft for the next budget.” This was what the Green budget politician Sven-Christian Kindler told the Editorial Network Germany (RND)Whether the budget, which the traffic light leadership agreed on after long discussions, will hold up will become clear in the coming week.
An initial assessment by opposition leader and CDU leader Friedrich Merz also suggests that a lot could change during the debate on the federal budget presented by the traffic light coalition. Shortly before the start of the negotiations, he accused the federal government of pursuing an unprofessional budget policy.
Merz criticizes traffic light budget before discussion in the Bundestag – “This is simply no longer serious”
Merz’s criticism focuses on the global underspending of allegedly twelve billion euros. This refers to an amount in the federal budget that is not yet covered by revenue. For the opposition leader, this is a historic figure: “This is the largest number that has ever been written into a draft budget. It is simply no longer serious,” Merz told the German Press Agency (dpa) in Berlin.
Because the traffic light coalition is trying to “cheat its way past the budget figures,” Merz said, he believes that this will “trigger the most lengthy discussions” in the budget committee. “It seems to me like someone who goes to a restaurant with his family, knows that he can’t pay the bill, and hopes that the restaurant owner will lower the prices over the course of the evening. This hope is unlikely to come true given the scale of the global spending cuts.”
“False report from colleague Merz” – Green politician contradicts CDU leader ahead of budget week
“It starts with a false report from our colleague Friedrich Merz, that is not a twelve billion gap,” says Green Party member of the Bundestag Andreas Audretsch in World-Interview. “We essentially have a size of around three billion that we still need to talk about. We will do that.”
Audretsch goes on the attack and criticizes the austerity measures in the federal budget demanded by the Union. “What Friedrich Merz is doing is not serious,” said the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens. “There is no suggestion whatsoever as to how the Union wants to finance the future.”
What is primarily contributing to the investment backlog in Germany is the current debt brake, says Audritsch. The CDU/CSU, but also the FDP, the traffic light party, are determined to stick to this regulation. “Many believe that there would be an easy way out if the debt brake could be eliminated. I am not convinced of that,” said Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) in an interview on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance. “Because otherwise we would only be postponing decisions that are necessary today until the future. In an ageing society with potentially fewer and fewer people in employment, that would not be a responsible approach.”
Budget week in the Bundestag – this is being discussed
The federal budget of the tr
affic light coalition for 2025 provides for expenditure of around 489 billion euros. This is slightly less than was estimated for 2024. Despite the much-discussed debt brake, 51 billion euros of additional debt is to be taken on to finance the budget, reported the ZDF today.
The largest expenditures in the traffic light government’s budget:
| Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs | 179.3 billion |
| Defense budget | 53.3 billion |
| Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport | 49.7 billion |
| Federal Ministry of Education and Research | 22.3 billion |
| Federal Ministry of Health | 16.4 billion |
(Source: Draft law on the federal budget for 2025)
As Federal Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner will present the draft budget to the Bundestag on Tuesday (September 10). The final budget for 2025 will only be adopted a few weeks before the end of the year. During this time, massive changes to the traffic light plan are expected to be made, such as ZDF today reported. (nhi)
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