MAINZ (dpa-AFX) – Despite the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the budget, Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck is sticking to the federal government’s plans for climate protection and investments. “We still have to make this possible,” said the Green politician on Tuesday evening in the ZDF program “Markus Lanz”. The task now is to find a way out of the financing difficulties caused by the Karlsruhe ruling “in a calm and concentrated manner.” He emphasized that these solutions should initially be developed “behind the scenes” and not in a public discussion.
Habeck emphasized that Germany also wanted to stimulate the economy and create jobs by investing in domestic technologies that help protect the climate. He wants to continue to implement these “central projects”, even if the current legal situation with regard to the budget and debt-financed special funds makes this more difficult.
The Economics and Climate Protection Minister defended the federal government’s decision not to claim an “emergency situation” for the debt brake in 2023, which might have made it safer to take on debt. This decision was made “jointly” in the traffic light coalition. However, the government has been confronted with crises since it took office in 2021 – such as the Russian attack on Ukraine and its consequences. “We are in a crisis situation, I would say in a polycrisis – different crises are overlapping one another.”
Last week, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the reallocation of 60 billion euros in the 2021 budget to be null and void. The money was approved as a Corona loan, but was subsequently intended to be used for climate protection and the modernization of the economy. At the same time, the judges also decided that the state was not allowed to reserve emergency loans for later years. As a result, billions more are at risk for future projects. Since the exact impact on the regular budget is still unclear, the Ministry of Finance decided to block certain commitments from all ministries in the budget for coming years as a precautionary measure./mi/DP/ngu