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Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) plans in the draft budget for 2023 with net new debt of 17.2 billion euros
Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen / IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen
The federal government's new debt is to fall drastically to 17.2 billion euros in 2023.
Government circles in Berlin said on Wednesday that the requirements of the debt brake would again be just barely met.
This should be made possible by the phasing out of corona-related expenses, but also thanks to higher tax revenues and greater withdrawals from reserves.
The new borrowing is thus well above the 7.5 billion euros estimated in the government's March budget.
However, according to the information, 7.7 billion euros in new loans are caused by special effects that are not counted towards the debt brake.
Their upper credit limit of 9.6 billion euros would thus be just about met in the coming year.
The draft budget is to be approved by the cabinet on Friday.
It will then be discussed further in the Bundestag.
According to the financial plan, in the years 2024 to 2026 new debt should be between 12.3 billion and 13.8 billion euros.
New debts of 138.9 billion euros are planned for 2022 – mainly because of the corona pandemic, but also because of the Ukraine war.
Government circles referred to considerable financial uncertainties.
The development of energy prices, the course of the war in Ukraine and the restoration of normal flows of goods from China are "factors that are difficult to assess," according to the finance department.
Funds have been set aside as a precaution at some points, for example 5.4 billion euros to secure the gas supply.
The draft budget has a volume of 445.2 billion euros, around 50 billion euros less than in the current year.
A sum of 362.3 billion euros is assumed for tax revenue, twelve billion euros more than estimated in March.
However, the plus is de facto eaten up by higher interest payments of roughly the same amount.
Economic growth of 2.5 percent is assumed for 2023, after 2.2 percent for 2022.
The gap between income and expenditure is to be closed not only through new borrowing, but above all through a withdrawal of 40.5 billion euros from reserves that were created years ago to finance costs for refugees.
Previously, a lower withdrawal was planned.
Loans for IMF and Health Fund
According to the information, the special effects that are driving up the debt are a loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of 6.3 billion euros and another loan to the health fund of one billion euros.
In terms of budget, this also increases the sum of investments to a record level of 58.4 billion euros.
In the years that follow, investments are expected to return to the current year's level of between EUR 51 and 52 billion.
In the case of defense spending, the regular budget estimate of 50.1 billion euros remains roughly at the current level. In addition, an initial outflow of 8.5 billion euros from the 100 billion euros special fund already decided to strengthen the Bundeswehr is calculated.
By far the largest individual item is the social budget with 112.4 billion euros for the statutory pension insurance alone.
In addition, there is the federal subsidy for the health fund, which has been increased by two billion euros to 16.5 billion euros.
Additional expenditure is also planned for other social benefits.
Among other things, savings are to be made in personnel through a flat-rate job cut of 1.5 percent.
Otherwise, the decline in spending is mainly due to the absence of costs associated with the corona pandemic.
mfh/AFP
