Source: Julian Weber/dpa
The traffic light provides seven billion euros more per year for families and children, says Finance Minister Christian Lindner. “The essentials for basic child security have been done financially.” In 2024, he expects more than one trillion euros in tax revenue for the first time.
BFederal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) sees little scope in the federal budget for the basic child security system demanded by the Greens. “A lot has already happened for families with children,” said Lindner of “Bild am Sonntag”. More is “always desirable, but not always possible”.
“Child benefit has been increased to 250 euros, higher than it has been since 1996,” said Lindner. The Federal Government provides a total of seven billion euros more per year for families and children. “The essentials for the basic child security is done financially.”
He sees other approaches to combating child poverty, said the FDP chairman: “Child poverty is often due to the parents’ unemployment. That’s why language support and integration of parents into the job market are crucial in order to improve the children’s chances.
opposition from the Greens
The fight against child poverty is a “task for society as a whole, to which Mr. Lindner should also feel committed,” said the deputy chairwoman of the Greens parliamentary group, Maria Klein-Schmeink. She called on the Minister of Finance to clarify “all key points and the financial resources” this year so that the payment can begin on January 1, 2025. Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) is vehemently demanding the introduction of basic child security and estimates the costs at twelve billion euros per year.
As priorities for the 2024 budget, instead of basic child security, Lindner named “the renewal of the infrastructure of all modes of transport, digitization of the state, upgrading of the Bundeswehr, strengthening education and research, modernization of trade, medium-sized companies and industry”. Other projects should be “marked as ‘desirable but currently not feasible'”.
Green Group Vice Klein-Schmeink rejected Lindner’s prioritization. “Basic child security is the central family and social policy project of the traffic light coalition, to which all partners have committed themselves,” she said. “The aim is to get children out of poverty and to support all families equally.”
Simply because the “child supplement that already exists today will be much easier to obtain”, expenditure would “increase significantly”. That was “also intentional, because we know that poverty has a variety of effects on children’s development opportunities and health,” said Klein-Schmeink.
Criticism also came from Left Party leader Dietmar Bartsch. “The social coolness of the finance minister towards poor children is frightening,” Bartsch told the editorial network Germany. Child poverty is currently higher than ever before in Germany. “The traffic light is not yet a family-friendly government.”
Bartsch added: “Families with children were the losers in the Corona crisis and are now the losers again in times of inflation.” The current funds by no means compensate for inflation, he explained. “We need basic child security that deserves its name. To do this, the system must be turned upside down. Not countless individual services that nobody knows, but a basic security that protects against child poverty.
Lindner does not want to name any key points
For 2024, the finance minister expects record revenues for the state. “The state as a whole is expected to take more than one trillion euros for the first time in the coming year,” said Lindner of the “BamS”. Nevertheless, the money is not enough to finance the statutory obligations of the federal government, Lindner told the newspaper. “There is currently no question of additional expenditure.”
Lindner will not present any key points for the 2024 budget. “We’re not going to do that this year,” he said. The opposition criticized the announcement. Christian Görke, financial policy spokesman for the Left Group, said: “With the non-presentation of the budget key points and the financial plan by 2026, the financial policy trickery à la Lindner continues and actually borders on a refusal to work.” Apart from the uniqueness in the financial policy history of the Federal Republic This is intended to cover up the structural imbalance in the federal budget.
Union faction vice Johann Wadephul (CDU) wrote on Twitter with a view to the Bundeswehr: “This federal government is standing ko. You can’t even agree on basic parameters. Longer-term procurements are slowed down in this way.”
The so-called key figures are usually presented before the final government draft for the budget. Actually, Lindner should have presented this at the beginning of March. However, he postponed the appointment because the ministries could not agree. According to the previous plan, the final government draft is to be approved by the cabinet on June 21 after the tax estimate for May. Then comes the Bundestag, which wants to decide on the budget at the beginning of December.