The state budget for 2023 has to be drawn up in autumn, and the state government is currently fighting hard for it. The coalition factions are already making it clear what is important to them – and expect difficult months.
Magdeburg (dpa/sa) – The state parliamentary groups of the CDU and FDP are urging compliance with the debt brake when preparing the state budget for 2023. “Higher, faster, it doesn’t get any further. We approach the budget with care, it has to be balanced. That’s our CDU DNA,” said CDU faction leader Siegfried Borgwardt of the German Press Agency. According to him, the budget is to be presented to Parliament in September and passed in December, or January at the latest.
According to reports, there is a hard struggle within the state government over the distribution of the funds, most recently the registrations of the individual ministries were around one billion euros above the forecast income. However, the FDP parliamentary group insists on a balanced budget. “We should comply with the debt brake in the country. You just have to make sure that we try to keep the store together and not spend more than we earn. Otherwise we will postpone the debt to the future for the following generations,” said parliamentary group leader Andreas Silbersack. “It is the task of the coalition that we condense the things that are not absolutely necessary. That will certainly give rise to disputes.”
SPD faction leader Katja Pähle said that a state budget is always difficult. “It won’t be an easy year for any of us. We’ll have to struggle to decide which accents to set.” Your parliamentary group wants to focus on the expansion of renewable energies in order to become less dependent on fossil fuels.
The Christian Democrats in particular are pushing for savings. “In the long term, performance laws must be put to the test. We then have to set priorities,” said Borgwardt. However, he also points out that some items are difficult to control. “Social welfare expenditure has increased significantly, from 474 million euros in 2009 to 809 million euros in 2019 – and that will not be the end of it. Current energy costs will continue to rise, and we only have an indirect influence on that.”
In May, the black-red-yellow coalition passed a record budget of more than 13 billion euros for 2022. In addition, a loan-financed special fund of around two billion euros has been set up to cushion the consequences of the corona pandemic. The state audit office had recently called for a restriction on the increase in expenditure. According to the authority, the country’s debts are 23.4 billion euros.