Hardly any scope for spending: Bayaz relies on risk prevention
Created: 2022-05-22Updated: 2022-05-22, 12:27 p.m
Danyal Bayaz speaks at a government press conference on the 2022 state budget. © Bernd Weißbrod/dpa/Archive image
Important points are being set in the double budget: It is decided what Kretschmann and Co. can still implement in this election period.
Not too much by the looks of it.
The consequences of the Ukraine war and the pandemic are causing great concern to householders.
Stuttgart - In spite of the good tax estimate, numerous projects of the green-black coalition threaten to fall by the wayside during the budget deliberations.
The reason for this is the narrow financial corridor for the double budget for 2023/2024, which Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz (Greens) has defined.
Although his draft for the cornerstones of the budget provides a total of 850 million euros for additional spending, this does not include aid for the municipalities and costs for Ukrainian refugees, as the German Press Agency in Stuttgart learned from the coalition on Sunday .
The demands of the municipalities alone add up to over one billion euros.
The leaders of the Greens and the CDU will meet on Monday evening to discuss the cornerstones of the budget.
The tax estimate was pleasing: for the next two years, around three billion euros more in taxes are to flow into the state coffers.
But Bayaz warns that the Ukraine war and the pandemic could impact the economy in the fall.
His draft provides a risk buffer of 640 million euros if tax revenues should collapse.
Because high inflation is also affecting the country, the minister wants to set aside around one billion euros for it.
Bayaz also has to cover the structural deficit from the medium-term financial planning of 5.4 billion euros, which the corona pandemic tore.
Part of the forecast additional income and the surplus from this year will also be used for this.
In order to have any leeway for political projects at all, the ministries are to save 600 million euros in a double budget.
Although the Ministry of Finance wants to contribute 40 percent, i.e. around 240 million euros, itself, there are still 360 million euros that the other departments have to bring from their budgets.
Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) had already stated that there was little scope for additional spending.
He made the requirement that more money should flow into climate protection and education.
The coalition says that the state wants to invest primarily in the renovation of state-owned buildings in order to still be able to achieve its goal of a climate-neutral state administration by 2030.
dpa