BERLIN (Dow Jones) – According to a report, the federal government wants to close the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF) at the end of the year as a result of the Constitutional Court ruling on the budget. Either the WSF will be closed or no new economic plan will be decided for 2024, which would lead to the same result, wrote the Handelsblatt, citing government circles. This means that 20 billion euros in expenses will be eliminated in the coming year. A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Finance did not want to comment on the report when asked by Dow Jones Newswires.
In October 2022, after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the WSF was given credit authorizations amounting to 200 billion euros to cushion the energy price shock. Among other things, it will be used to finance the energy price brakes, which were originally supposed to run until the end of March 2024. According to the report, following the budget ruling of the Constitutional Court, the federal government considers it unconstitutional to also use loan authorizations from 2022 for the years 2023 and 2024.
According to the information, 37 billion euros have flowed out of the WSF so far this year. For the coming year, expenditure of 13.5 billion euros was planned for the energy brake, 4.5 billion euros for network fees and two billion euros for hospitals. This year, the federal government wants to suspend the debt brake again, which will secure WSF spending. In 2024, the debt brake should come into force again as normal, which is why the WSF can no longer be used next year.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2023 1:44 p.m. ET (18:44 GMT)