After a marathon of negotiations, the traffic light coalition partners agree on the upcoming federal budget. As expected, the opposition is unenthusiastic. Above all, the Union criticizes the amount of new debt.
The opposition in the Bundestag unanimously criticized the 2023 federal budget, which was completed on Friday night. The traffic light coalition lacks the will to save, the new debt is far too high, the focus is wrong – these were the accusations from the CDU/CSU, Left Party and AfD on Friday. In the early morning, the budget committee in Berlin had completed the work on the figures after an 18-hour “cleaning session”.
It envisages spending of around 476.29 billion euros and new debt of 45.6 billion euros. However, the AfD put the real new debt at around 200 billion euros, the CDU/CSU even at 300 billion euros. Their budgetary spokesmen Christian Haase (CDU) and Peter Boehringer (AfD) referred, among other things, to the special funds to equip the Bundeswehr and to deal with the consequences of the Ukraine war.
He expects Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner “to tighten the reins a lot more,” said Haase. The Union was dismayed that the traffic light had “exploited all the leeway” of the debt brake. “Nothing illegal happens, but the possibility of taking on debt doesn’t mean that you have to take it on.” The CDU politician criticized in particular that the traffic light coalition wanted to create 5,000 new jobs. “It’s a permanent burden for the future. Every employee is entitled to a salary, and every employee is later entitled to a pension.”
The left criticized the budget as socially unbalanced. “Crises are the times of rapid redistribution from bottom to top. And the federal government is doing far too little about it,” said her budget spokeswoman Gesine Lötzsch. This is also reflected in this household. Lötzsch again called for a “just tax reform that primarily taxes large fortunes.”
There are “many booking tricks and many side budgets,” Boehringer complained. “Large parts of the borrowing are not estimated in the core budget.” The AfD politician described the budget as a “great budget” for energy speculators, climate profiteers, migrants and arms dealers. “There is money for the whole world, everywhere and for everything, just not for Germans, not for working Germans, for financially and energy-weak citizens.”
