Enlarge image
Markus Söder: Decision "in the next few months"
Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen / IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen
Bavaria has threatened a new lawsuit against the state financial equalization.
The fact that his federal state had to pay 60 percent of the financial equalization and thus nine billion euros was unacceptable, said Prime Minister Markus Söder on the sidelines of a closed conference of the CSU state parliamentary group in the Franconian monastery of Banz.
“We cannot accept that,” said Söder.
Therefore, a lawsuit is being examined again - "in the next few months" there should be a decision.
Bavaria is currently responsible for around half of the total compensation volume, and the state's payments have now risen to around nine billion euros.
According to participants, Söder said: "We are the good Samaritans of Germany." It could not go on like this.
It needs a cap and a maximum limit.
Söder rejects campaign allegations
As early as 2013, Bavaria - at that time together with Hesse - had filed a lawsuit against the state financial equalization.
In 2017, the two countries withdrew the lawsuit after negotiations.
Söder said that without the agreement at that time, Bavaria would have to pay ten billion euros and even more.
But the current amount is no longer acceptable.
"In my view, this is an attack on federalism," said Söder.
It is also not an election campaign maneuver a year before the state elections in Bavaria.
The other donor countries would also gradually begin to think about the system.
The system of state financial equalization provides that financially weak states receive equalization allocations from financially strong states.
The calculation is based on the average financial strength per inhabitant.
Local finances are also taken into account.
The background is that the 16 federal states generate different levels of income due to their economic, geographic and regional characteristics.
The aim of the financial equalization is to take into account the constitutionally enshrined goal of "uniformity of living conditions" in the federal states.
Apr/AFP/dpa
