Traffic light budget dispute: Agreed on Friday?

Berlin/Warsaw. Days of decision: The dispute over the federal budget for 2025 should be resolved at least in fundamental terms by Friday – otherwise the traffic lights are threatened with chaos. The MPs would then go into the parliamentary summer break without any orientation on where cuts will be made and whether the debt brake will be relaxed after all. This would further destabilize the coalition, coalition circles said on Tuesday evening.

The main point of contention is still the question of whether the debt brake will be relaxed again. The SPD and the Greens are pushing for it, the FDP rejects it. Vice President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Kubicki, threatened Scholz in the FAZ with the end of the Chancellor’s majority. Kubicki stressed that there is no way to circumvent the debt brake with the FDP and addressed the question of trust. His statement caused a stir within the SPD. They said that you have to take what he said seriously. He is the deputy of FDP leader Christian Lindner.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) aims to present a result to Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Lindner by Friday at the latest – in time for the European Championship quarter-final between Germany and Spain at 6 p.m., the SPD said. Like them, the Greens are preparing for special parliamentary group meetings as early as possible on Friday morning. Scholz is to hold a press conference afterwards. Lindner and Habeck are to give a press conference. SPD member of the Bundestag Ralf Stegner told the Editorial Network Germany (RND) after Scholz’s appearance in the Social Democratic parliamentary group: “I am confident that something will happen on Friday.”

The budget should have been approved by the cabinet this Wednesday and then sent to the Bundestag for discussion and decision-making in the autumn. Now 17 July is considered the date.

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After the Federal Constitutional Court’s budget ruling last November, the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister negotiated for four weeks, finally reached far-reaching decisions in a night meeting and announced them the next day, exhausted and within a few minutes. the Chancellery – without first informing the members of parliament. The result was the austerity measures for farmers, which led to around 1,000 demonstrations throughout the country. Something like this must not happen again.

Scholz warned Tuesday evening at the summer festival of the Parliamentary Left (PL): “We must not play things off against each other.” Aid to Ukraine must not lead to cuts in investments. PL spokesman and SPD deputy Matthias Miersch said: “It depends on the next few days.” Of course, the budget must be constitutional. But it must also guarantee the cohesion of the country.

Softer sounds than a week ago

There are currently two interpretations circulating in the coalition of what happened: Some say that the three men at the top have already largely reached an agreement on the budget. Others say that this is money laundering. Because then there would already be results. The sticking point is still the debt brake, which the SPD and the Greens want to suspend and which Lindner – at least so far – is struggling with. Given the tense political situation, it is unlikely that Scholz will throw him out of the government.

However, the parliamentary group leaders involved formulated their positions again on Tuesday. SPD group leader Rolf Mützenich said it was important that spending on the country’s security was not played off against spending on its modernization. To achieve this, a budget emergency must be identified to suspend the debt brake. “At the moment, we believe that this is the only way to close the gap,” he said. However, there were two backdoors built into the supposedly tough statement: the words “at the moment” and “believe.” Mützenich sounded friendlier than a week earlier, at least.

FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr stressed: “We have to make do with the money we have.” Unlike the SPD and the Greens, the Free Democrats are not planning a special parliamentary group meeting. Apparently, they assume that Lindner will get his way by rejecting new debts.

The Greens do not want to cut back on social justice and climate protection

However, the Green Group’s budget spokesman, Sven-Christian Kindler, told the RND: “The European elections have shown that the traffic light has clearly lost its support. We will not regain trust with an austerity budget that massively cuts social justice, climate protection and international responsibility. An austerity budget would be the fundamentally wrong answer to the current economic and social situation and the upcoming elections in eastern Germany.”

Meanwhile, the budget negotiations are being weighed down by a new coalition dispute: largely at the insistence of the Greens, the law introduced by Lindner to establish a specialized money laundering authority is being further postponed and will not be finally adopted by the Bundestag before the House of Representatives. summer vacation. The explanations for this vary. State Secretary of Finance Florian Toncar (FDP) spoke of a significant setback in the fight against organized crime.

SPD MP Axel Schäfer told the RND that he has been in the SPD for 55 years and in the Bundestag for 22 years. He has experienced completely different things than this traffic light budget dispute. Namely this: “I have already been cursed at by Herbert Wehner without falling over.” This coalition is dealing with more crises at the same time than any other federal government. This must be made clear to the people. And the FDP and parts of the Greens must learn “to emphasise what we have in common, instead of mourning what divides us.” And the FDP must no longer ‘worship’ the debt brake.