Budget debate: Munich spends 15 billion euros - opposition rails: "Eat breakfast on our reserves"

Created: 01/19/2022Updated: 01/19/2022 2:54 p.m

By: Sascha Karowski, Klaus Vick

Because of the pandemic, the city council continues to meet in the show palace.

© Oliver Bodmer

From a financial point of view, the city came through the Corona year 2021 well thanks to unexpectedly high trade tax receipts.

Nevertheless, Munich is likely to be heading towards a record level of debt due to immense investments in the future.

This became clear during the budget debate.

Munich – The forecasts were bleak, but according to treasurer Christoph Frey (SPD), the city has so far come through the corona pandemic better than expected.

This is mainly due to record income from trade tax of 3.3 billion euros.

Instead of a deficit of almost 500 million euros, the estimate for the administrative budget for 2022 shows a plus of 174 million euros.

The budget was passed on Wednesday with the votes of the Greens and SPD - against the votes of the opposition.

Munich: The level of debt will increase to 2.6 billion euros

Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) was pleased that the city was able to fill vacancies in the individual departments. In the previous year, Green-Red had made savings here. An additional personnel budget of 20 million euros is now possible in the current year.

The investment volume for 2022 is 1.83 billion euros, of which 700 million euros are for the construction of schools and day-care centers alone. According to the plan, the city's debt level will increase from the current 1.5 billion to 2.6 billion euros by the end of the year. The record minus of 2004 (3.4 billion euros) should already be exceeded in 2023 - especially since huge investments are also planned in the coming years. Around 15 billion euros are to be spent, half by 2025 alone. Among other things, the expansion of local transport will cost around 860 million euros. The lowering of the S8 at Johanneskirchen should cost up to 1.8 billion. The housing program up to 920 million euros, the conversion of the Gasteig 450 million euros.The renovation of the Viktualienmarkt (70 million euros) or the renovation of the town hall with an estimated 150 million euros seem like peanuts.

SPD leader Anne Hübner: "Housing is the main social issue in the city"

Green parliamentary group leader Florian Roth summarized the mission statement of the green-red coalition under the motto "dare more future".

He spoke of a "social-ecological alliance" that was committed to the traffic turnaround in the city as well as climate protection and housing construction.

Roth: "We want to implement our goals in a sustainable and socially just manner." For example, an additional 100 million euros per year would be invested in climate protection and housing construction.

The SPD parliamentary group leader Anne Hübner emphasized: "Housing is the main social issue in the city." In terms of transport policy, she described the new construction of tram lines as essential.

CSU parliamentary group leader Manuel Pretzl predicted a financial disaster by 2025 in view of the green-red investment projects: "We're eating all our reserves." The trade tax revenue is probably a one-time blessing.

The target figure of 2,000 instead of 1,500 new city apartments per year is welcome, but in practice it overwhelms the construction companies.

Regarding the traffic policy of the town hall government, Pretzl said: "The coalition should rather push a few bike paths backwards than save on the future of our children and school building measures."

Munich: City Hall opposition accuses Green-Red of failings in digitization

Roth and Hübner strongly disagreed with this assessment.

According to Roth, around 20 million euros will be spent on the construction of new cycle paths in 2022, which corresponds to around one percent of the entire investment budget.

Hübner countered Pretzl: "The criticism that the municipal budget will go bankrupt is a gross exaggeration."

FDP leader Jörg Hoffmann accused the coalition of “fundamental hostility to the economy” and failure to digitize the administration.

Left City Councilor Brigitte Wolf also called for "acceleration in the IT sector".

She also criticized the fact that many departments were understaffed and that numerous projects for the turnaround in traffic and climate change were only hesitantly tackled by Green-Red.