By Angelika Hellemann, Luisa Volkhausen and Peter Tiede
The plan to use the Corona billions for the benefit of (social) simulation games by the coalition partners dates back to the time before the federal election. In some cases they even became a prerequisite for filling the government.
They called it the “future coalition” and wrote about their red-green-yellow coalition agreement in colorful colors in autumn 2021: “Dare to make more progress”. They dreamed. Pretty big. Everything different! Even more social! Even more eco! Economic and social restructuring! Even more budgetary discipline!
The three traffic light men Olaf Scholz (65, SPD), Robert Habeck (54, Greens) and Christian Lindner (44, FDP) just didn’t have enough money.
But they knew how to get more coal – or so they thought. Until this Wednesday.
► The Federal Constitutional Court thwarted the traffic light financial plans. The government had put 60 billion euros of remaining Corona aid into the Climate Transformation Fund (KTF) and wanted to pay for climate protection with pandemic money. The judges ruled: unconstitutional!
Scholz, Habeck and Lindner are now staring into a gigantic financial hole: they are missing 60 billion in loans. Your Villa Kunterbunt: disenchanted as a castle in the air. Not only climate projects are now hanging in the air – also the major infrastructure projects of the crisis railway!
CSU man Alexander Dobrindt raged against the traffic light experts Photo: dpa/picture-alliance
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt (53) slammed the traffic light in the Bundestag on Thursday about what it had done:
▶︎ “For the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, a coalition was robbed of its entire financial basis and deprived of it.”
▶︎ “It is the founding document of your coalition that vanished into thin air yesterday.”
MAIN CAUSE: Olaf Scholz. He was finance minister before the federal election – and was convinced very early on that he would win the federal election.
But he knew that the debt brake would mean his government would lack money for all of its wishes. So he came up with a plan to move the Corona billions.
Even before the federal election, Scholz assured familiar circles that there would be enough money. And in the coalition negotiations between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, the billion-dollar shift plan became the secret weapon to be able to fulfill all the different traffic light spending requests.
The three question marks: Lindner, Habeck and Scholz on Friday in the Bundestag Photo: dpa/picture-alliance
The shadow bankers of the traffic lights
As the newly sworn-in Chancellor, Scholz then presented his shadow fund to the new Finance Minister Lindner. He gladly accepted the special money bag because it meant he could save his beloved debt brake and the categorical no to tax increases. The financial godfather Scholz, his shadow banker Lindner and the billionaire profiteer Habeck brought the construct through parliament.
Constitutional expert Volker Boehme-Neßler (61, University of Oldenburg) summarizes the role of the Federal Chancellor to BZ as follows: “The draft law was introduced by Olaf Scholz as Federal Chancellor on December 13th, 2021. He has been Chancellor since December 8th. The preparatory work, which is significant for a supplementary budget, was certainly carried out under him as finance minister.”
His expert opinion on the legal expertise of the three traffic light men:
▶︎ “The law very obviously violated the basic rules of budgetary constitutional law. Anyone who knew even a little about it knew that.”
▶︎ “The traffic light coalition has run into a constitutional catastrophe.”
But Scholz, Lindner and Habeck thought they were smarter. Now their “future coalition” lacks the financial foundation! The traffic light is shaking!
All of this was foreseeable
As early as January 10, 2022, lawyers got to the point in a Bundestag hearing:
▶︎ According to Bundestag minutes, the representative of the Federal Audit Office cited “constitutional concerns”.
▶︎ The German District Council sent its managing director, the renowned law professor Hans-Günter Henneke (66, University of Osnabrück), into the field. He found clear words: “booking tricks” that are only intended to make one thing possible – “to circumvent the debt brake in 2023”. The current debt rule does not allow this.
▶︎ Law professor Christoph Gröpl (57, Saarland University) said dryly: “Fighting global warming has nothing to do with fighting the corona pandemic.”
The traffic light ignored it.
▶︎ With the Greens in the Bundestag it sounded like this: “We are making budget policy that is fair to generations.” A blatant mistake.
▶︎ The FDP’s budget expert, the actually rock-solid Otto Fricke (57), said in the Bundestag: “This is modern politics from the center.”
Well, now Germany knows what is in its midst: a gigantic budget hole.