Taubert slowed down with double household: expenses increase

2022-03-08T16:33:39.705Z

Taubert slowed down with double household: expenses increase Created: 03/08/2022Updated: 03/08/2022 17:20 Heike Taubert (SPD), Finance Minister of Thuringia, in front of the press. © Martin Schutt/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa Actually, it should only be about the main features of a double budget for Thuringia in a retreat of the red-red-green state government. But things turned out differently. Erfurt

Taubert slowed down with double household: expenses increase

Created: 03/08/2022Updated: 03/08/2022 17:20

Heike Taubert (SPD), Finance Minister of Thuringia, in front of the press.

Actually, it should only be about the main features of a double budget for Thuringia in a retreat of the red-red-green state government.

But things turned out differently.

Erfurt - In Thuringia there will be no double budget for the next two years until the 2024 state elections.

Finance Minister Heike Taubert (SPD) failed with her project in the cabinet on Tuesday.

"I didn't get the proposal through," said Taubert after a government budget meeting in Erfurt, which went much longer than originally planned.

According to the minister, only one budget will initially be drawn up for 2023, which will be presented to the state parliament at the beginning of September.

He will spend more than this year - the volume is expected to be around 12.1 billion euros, according to figures from Taubert.

In 2022 it will be around 11.9 billion euros.

In the days before the budget retreat, the State Chancellery had said that there had been an agreement within the red-red-green minority government on a double budget - the retreat was primarily about the basics and the schedule.

Taubert justified the surprising turnaround with the uncertainties caused by the war in Ukraine.

She spoke of unpredictability and currently unforeseeable effects.

But the ministries' need for more funding than they had planned also apparently played a major role.

According to Taubert, 165 million euros more are to be taken from the state reserve to finance the 2023 budget than planned.

Overall, the state would have to withdraw EUR 760 million from its financial reserve, which the minister predicts will be around EUR 1 billion at the end of this year.

This means that a budget for 2024 cannot be represented, according to Taubert.

Actually, according to previous plans, the reserve should be used to close financing gaps in both 2023 and 2024.

However, the withdrawal in the coming year will now be too high for this.

Taubert said some of her cabinet colleagues did not support her budget proposal - in view of their budgets and expected cost increases.

From the left it was said that she had stood by the double budget project.

According to information from government circles, there was a change of opinion to the detriment of the double budget planned by Taubert, first among the other two SPD ministers and finally also among the two ministries of the Greens.

According to Taubert, the government wants to deal with the 2023 budget on March 22nd, it is to be adopted by the cabinet on June 26th and handed over to the state parliament at the beginning of September.

The CDU parliamentary group welcomed the government's move.

"We campaigned for a single household from the start because inflation, the explosion in energy prices, flight and the pandemic do not allow serious planning for two years," said parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt.

In his opinion, a double budget would have been “fiscal roulette with tax money”.

The CDU is the largest opposition faction.