Germany: Finance Minister Lindner will cut social spending. The greens still want green policies, and military spending is left untouched
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) announced savings in sectors such as social services and international climate finance to fill gaps in the budget for 2024, after the 60 billion hole caused by the Constitutional Court decision: “We will have to tackle three major cost blocks,” the FDP leader told the newspapers of the Funke media group. This includes the social affairs sector, on which the federal government currently spends 45% of its expenditure. “We'll see how we can get more precise,” Lindner said.
It is a question, for example, of ensuring that people can enter the world of work more quickly and therefore reducing social spending for the State. “For refugees from Ukraine, for example, there is an increase in jobs,” Lindner said. So you either work or you leave
The Minister of Finance also announced a review of the regulation on social contributions to citizens. The increases already decided could be revised because the inflation rate has reduced and is expected to reduce further in the future. However, in the meantime, the increase in prices has taken effect and has cut citizens' incomes.
The minister indicated international aid as a second area of savings: Germany is at the forefront of development cooperation and international climate financing. “We can easily remain in first place. But perhaps the gap to second place can be narrowed,” says the FDP politician. The goal is “fairer burden-sharing internationally”.
Lindner also sees savings opportunities in government financing programs. “There are numerous subsidies where you have to ask whether they actually achieve their goals or whether they are obsolete,” he said. It is still too early to name individual programs. This “would otherwise lead to a rush for funding in the last few meters.”
“The defense budget remains intact”
According to Lindner there will be no cuts in the defense sector. “The defense budget remains intact,” he assured. So we will continue to spend both on the rearmament of Germany and to send direct military aid to Ukraine.
There remains money for decarbonization programs. That's what the greens want.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock , a leader of the Green party, said Berlin would meet all its international financial commitments to tackle climate change, despite a budget crisis that has thrown its climate spending plans into disarray. 2024.
“We will always be a reliable partner,” Baerbock told the Financial Times ahead of the UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai. “That is why we have agreed within the federal government that we will fulfill our international obligations.”
These include 6 billion euros of international climate finance that Germany has pledged to provide by 2025, 2 billion euros for the United Nations Green Climate Fund and Berlin's contribution to a new global fund to address climate-related losses and damages in developing countries, he added.
Baerbock was speaking as the German government rushed to plug a 60 billion euro hole in its public finances created by a bombshell ruling by the country's Constitutional Court on November 15 that threw Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition into crisis.
So the German government's choice is clear: it cuts the welfare state, but not weapons or green policies, both domestic and international. Germans can suffer, those who take climate money cannot.
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The article Germany: Finance Minister Lindner will cut social spending. The greens still want green policies, and the military spending that cannot be touched comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/germania-il-ministro-delle-finanze-lindner-tagliera-le-spese-sociali-i-verdi-vogliono-comunque-le-politiche-verdi-e-la-spesa-militare-non-si-tocca/ on Sat, 02 Dec 2023 10:00:26 +0000.