State parliament passes double budget 2022/23

Created: 06/23/2022, 22:38

Berlin's Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) speaks at the plenary session in the House of Representatives.

© Annette Riedl/dpa

The Berlin state budget for 2022/23 has been passed.

It has a total volume of more than 76 billion euros.

Late Thursday evening, the House of Representatives approved the budget law that regulates the finances of the state of Berlin for 2022 and 2023 with its red-green-red majority.

CDU, FDP and AfD voted against.

"Never before has so much been invested in this city," said Finance Senator Daniel Wesener on Thursday at the last plenary session before the summer break.

Berlin – 38.7 billion euros are planned for 2022, and 37.9 billion euros for 2023.

A significant part of the funds is planned for personnel expenses: in both years it is more than 11 billion euros.

The signs point to further job expansion in the public sector, for example in the police and fire brigade.

The country also wants to make progress in housing construction.

Berlin wants to complete a total of 100,000 new apartments by the end of 2026.

In each of the two years of the two-year budget, 750 million euros are earmarked for housing subsidies.

The Berlin School Building Offensive (BSO) should also make progress.

The budget law provides around 700 million euros per year for school construction.

In the event that energy prices continue to rise, a reserve of 380 million euros has been planned for correspondingly higher expenditure by the authorities.

This includes 50 million euros for the so-called emergency plan.

The funds are intended to help Berliners who, for example, can no longer pay their electricity bills.

In addition, 650 million euros per year are estimated for the accommodation, care and integration of refugees - especially for Ukrainian war refugees.

The federal government takes over the larger part of this sum.

dpa