Berlin
SPD Secretary General Kevin Kühnert has criticized statements by Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) on development cooperation was sharply criticized. “Lindner may have found that funny, but I can only warn him against justifying his savings goals with such an ultimate nationalistic tongue-lashing,” Kühnert told the news portal “T-Online”. Lindner thus serves a worldview in which humanitarian aid and development cooperation are merely gifts that can be given to the world in good times.
In the debate on the 2025 federal budget, Lindner said that the spending wishes of individual ministries were like “Christmas, Easter and birthdays together”. He was mainly referring to the departments with obligations abroad. The announcement was primarily aimed at Minister of Development Cooperation Svenja Schulze (SPD) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), whose estimates for their individual 2025 budgets are around €2 billion above their targets. With a view to development cooperation, Lindner warned that it was no longer possible to finance every cycle path in Peru with German tax money.
Kühnert reacted indignantly. “We cannot complain on Sunday that we do not have enough geopolitical weight compared to Russia and China to cancel development cooperation on Monday with populist fanfare,” he said. “This is about our strategic interests in the world and not about charity.” Lindner probably knows that development projects also have strategic effects, just as he knows that the development budget represents only a fraction of the total budget. “But he also knows the vulnerability of international aid and uses it unapologetically.”
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