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Public money: rehabilitation of motorways
Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/dpa
Last year, the federal government incurred significantly less debt than initially assumed.
New loans totaling 115.4 billion euros were taken out in the core budget.
That was announced on Thursday from the Treasury Department.
That is around 23.5 billion euros less than planned.
“On the one hand, the budget statement shows that we do not exhaust all legal possibilities of borrowing by hook or by crook, but only to the extent necessary,” explained Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP).
However, it also shows that planning and approval procedures must be accelerated so that investment funds are actually used.
The reason for the more positive balance is, on the one hand, higher tax revenue: As already expected in the tax estimate at the end of November, the federal government took in almost nine billion euros in addition.
On the other hand, less money was spent.
According to the ministry, this was due to delivery bottlenecks caused by the crisis.
In addition, precautionary funds in connection with the Ukraine war and the corona crisis were not fully exhausted.
Despite an increase, the federal government also had to spend around one billion euros less on interest than initially estimated.
Special assets not part of the calculation
This balance sheet does not take into account what are known as special funds of the federal government, for example the pots to strengthen the Bundeswehr and to finance the energy price brakes, for which the federal government took on large debts.
According to the ministry, around 30 billion euros of the up to 200 billion euros for the gas and electricity price brake have been used so far.
In the 100 billion euro special fund for the Bundeswehr, contracts for just over 10 billion euros have so far been concluded.
But no money has flowed here yet.
mamk/dpa-AFX
