The NRW rescue package was created to deal with the consequences of the Corona virus. Shortly before it expires, the government is worried about billions again. The State Court of Auditors considers this to be unconstitutional. The Ministry of Finance must react to this.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – To overcome the crisis, the black-green state government of North Rhine-Westphalia wants to incur new debts of up to five billion euros. After allegations of unconstitutional action by the State Audit Office, she dropped her plan at the last minute to use billions from the Corona rescue package for the 2023 state budget. Instead, a so-called special fund for crisis management is to be created based on the model of the Corona rescue package, as the state government announced on Tuesday in Düsseldorf. For implementation, a second supplementary budget is planned for the year 2022, which is coming to an end.
The state government emphasized that the short-term change in financial planning will enable individual crisis management measures to take effect at the end of this year. She did not quantify the amount of the so-called special fund for crisis management. According to information from the German Press Agency, it should be up to five billion euros. In the Corona rescue package, the remaining money is to be used to pay off debt. However, the state government must expect higher interest rates than in the past for new loans.
“The crisis needs clarity and security for people,” said Finance Minister Marcus Optendrenk (CDU). He spoke of an emergency situation that could only be met with immediate and comprehensive investment and aid programs to combat the recession and energy crisis, stabilize the economy and avoid social damage. “On the one hand, the aid programs will close existing gaps in the federal aid programs for the electricity and gas price brakes and the additional hardship fund, but on the other hand they will go beyond that with a view to the special situation in North Rhine-Westphalia,” he announced.
It’s about helping companies to cope with the difficult situation in winter. It is important to prevent imminent relocations of production to countries with lower energy costs. To do this, short-term corporate aid would have to be implemented and the transformation of the economy would have to be accelerated in order to become less dependent on fossil fuels, said the NRW finance minister. In addition, it is important to provide help for citizens in order to buffer the effects of the energy crisis, especially for low-income households, and to maintain the social infrastructure. It is about social cohesion in society.
The NRW government wants to use exemptions for the debt brake for the new debts. The federal state will be hit harder by the crisis than others, since particularly energy-intensive sectors such as the metal and chemical industries are affected by the energy crisis. The slump in economic growth is more pronounced in NRW than in other countries. But NRW is not alone in taking this course: Despite the debt brake, Bremen wants to take out further loans worth billions in order to achieve climate protection goals and alleviate the energy crisis resulting from the Ukraine war. In Saxony-Anhalt, the government’s draft budget for 2023 provides for net borrowing of 273 million euros due to the economy.
The state audit office has sharply criticized the 2023 budget of the NRW government. Although it is clear that the Corona rescue package will expire at the end of the year, the government has raised 4.15 billion euros in the past few weeks. President Brigitte Mandt told the “Rheinische Post” (Tuesday) that she could never spend this amount on corona measures by the end of the year. Any funds still available at the end of 2022 must be used to pay off debt. A credit-financed reserve for the next year is not possible with this money. The constitutional court had previously classified such practices as “fundamentally unconstitutional”.
SPD faction leader Thomas Kutschaty accused the NRW state government, which had taken out new loans for the planned state budget for 2023 under the guise of the Corona rescue package, of breach of trust and sleight of hand. In other federal states, on the other hand, there has long been help for citizens. Kuschaty named the possibility of a say in spending as a condition for the SPD to support the new special fund in parliament. This time, proposals from the opposition would have to be taken into account. That was ultimately not the case with the special fund for the Corona rescue package of up to 25 billion euros, which was broadly approved in 2020.
The FDP faction leader Henning Höne rated the announcement of the state government as a U-turn and “financial belly landing with an announcement”. “Camouflage, trick, deceive: The black-green state government wanted to use funds from the Corona rescue package against their purpose,” he wrote on Twitter. The legal doubts of the FDP were shared by the Court of Auditors, among others.
