Federal Finance Minister Chrisitan Lindner (FDP)
Quelle: Getty Images/Sean Gallup
In the struggle over debt policy in Europe, the Ministry of Finance rejects the ideas from Brussels. Instead of special rules for each EU country, there should also be uniform specifications in the future. But apparently there is no consensus even within the federal government.
SThree weeks ago, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) made no secret of his displeasure at what he saw as the excessively arbitrary behavior of the EU Commission. Meeting with his counterparts from other European countries, he insisted that the Commission must consult with EU countries again before presenting a draft law to reform Europe’s debt rules. Lindner was too worried that the Stability and Growth Pact would be watered down too much.
Now Lindner follows up the dispute. His ministry sent the Commission the position of the federal government in a so-called non-paper. The three pages that are available to WELT state the minimum requirements that Germany places on a future set of rules.
“The Commission’s previous proposals are inadequate,” said the Ministry of Finance. With targets negotiated bilaterally between the member states and the Commission, as Brussels imagines, no adequate reduction in national debt can be guaranteed.
The letter says that “simple and transparent spending rules” will still be needed for everyone in the future. The higher the debt, the greater the pressure to adapt. To this end, the federal government is proposing fixed limits and new lower limits for debt reduction.
Highly indebted countries must therefore reduce their debt ratio by at least one percent annually, less indebted countries by at least 0.5 percent. This should be the default until the quota is no longer higher than the well-known 60 percent. The Commission, on the other hand, would like to examine the debt sustainability of each country individually and define corresponding individual reduction paths.
And there is one more point that the Ministry of Finance attaches importance to. “The set of rules must not remain a toothless tiger,” says Lindner’s house. Not only the rule-making itself, but also the enforcement of the rules is crucial.
When it comes to climate protection, Habeck has prevailed
From next year it must be the case again that Member States with a deficit of more than three percent of economic output have to open a deficit procedure. There should be no other exceptions to this rule. Germany, too, had benefited from the rather lax handling of debt rules in recent years.
The federal government is moving in line with the Commission’s point on the point that special incentives should be created for spending on climate protection and digitization. The Ministry of Finance is also critical of this exception, but Robert Habeck’s (Greens) Ministry of Economic Affairs prevailed, it said. In principle, according to the letter to the EU Commission, the stop lines applicable to all must also be observed here.
Germany now wants to approach other member states with these proposals. It will be interesting to see what highly indebted countries such as Greece and Italy, but also France and Spain will say about this – and what the EU Commission in Brussels will say.
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