Press
The budget dispute has divided the traffic light coalition for months. A statement from Finance Minister Lindner is now particularly upsetting the SPD.
Berlin – Christian Linder (FDP) described the financial planning of Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Bündnis90/The Greens) as “Christmas, Easter and birthdays together”. You can no longer finance every cycle path in Peru with German tax money, said the Federal Finance Minister – marking another low point in the traffic light coalition’s budget dispute.
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert sharply criticized Lindner’s statements. “Linder may have found that funny, but I can only warn him against justifying his savings goals with such ultimately nationalistic language,” Kühnert told the news portal t online. Lindner thus serves a worldview according to which humanitarian aid and development cooperation are merely gifts that can be given to the world in good times.
Kühnert on Lindner’s development policy view: “Populist fanfare”
Kühnert also criticized Lindner’s approach of viewing development policy as charity. It is also about strategic interests abroad. “We can’t complain on Sundays that we don’t have enough geopolitical weight compared to Russia and China, only to slash development cooperation with populist fanfare on Mondays.”
Linder probably knows that development projects also have strategic effects, just as he knows that the development budget only makes up a fraction of the overall budget, said Kühnert loudly dpa. “But he also knows about the vulnerability of international aid and uses it unabashedly.”
Lindner threatens traffic light coalition partners if they do not follow his austerity measures
The attacks by the SPD general secretary against the FDP boss are preceded by a heated dispute over the federal budget within the traffic light coalition. While Lindner wants to stick to the debt brake at all costs, the SPD and the Greens see financing the welfare state and defense as a priority. Most recently, Lindner threatened his coalition partners that he would collapse the pension pact and the coalition if the SPD and the Greens did not accept the debt brake and savings in social spending in the budget negotiations to bridge the billion-dollar gap in the budget. (lm/dpa)
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