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Markus Söder wants to relieve the Bavarian taxpayer
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Peter Kneffel / dpa
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder has announced that he intends to file a lawsuit against the state financial equalization in the first half of the year.
"It's just unfair and unjust," said the CSU politician of the "Bild am Sonntag".
A pain limit had been reached.
»We show solidarity, but not naive.«
Last year, Bavaria bore the largest burden in the state financial equalization with a total of 9.9 billion euros.
A total of 18.5 billion euros had been redistributed between the 16 federal states.
"We don't want to abolish the state financial equalization, but reform it and relieve the Bavarian taxpayers," announced Söder.
He also complained that the federal government had no heart for the south.
“It can be felt everywhere: Funding is being cut and projects are being deliberately canceled.
So we have to do everything ourselves.«
Lawsuit dropped in 2017
In 2013, Bavaria – together with Hesse – had already filed a lawsuit against the state financial equalization system at the time.
The two states then withdrew their lawsuit in 2017 after the financial relations between the federal and state governments had been reorganized.
The system of state financial equalization provides that financially weak states receive equalization allocations from financially strong states.
The calculation is based on the average financial strength per inhabitant.
Local finances are also taken into account.
The background is that the 16 federal states generate different levels of income due to their economic, geographic and regional characteristics.
The aim of the financial equalization is to take into account the constitutionally enshrined goal of "uniformity of living conditions" in the federal states.
sak/dpa