Bavaria's budget "actually reduced"? Supreme Court of Auditors criticizes Söder plan

The Bavarian CSU parliamentary group wants to debate the budget for 2023 for three days.

The Supreme Court of Auditors is already highly dissatisfied.

Munich – The Bavarian Supreme Court of Auditors (ORH) complains about wasting money in Bavaria – shortly before the start of the budget week.

The list of ORH allegations against the state government under Prime Minister Markus Söder is long.

The ORH demanded that the government debt, which had increased drastically due to Corona, be reduced.

Bavaria's Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) has now defended the budgetary policy.

Among other things, he pointed out that the corona-related new debt was lower than planned: the total credit requirement in the “Corona Pandemic Special Fund” for the years 2020 to 2022 remained well below the originally planned framework.

In addition, Bavaria still has the lowest per capita debt in a comparison of the federal states.

From this Tuesday (March 28) in the state parliament, the CSU parliamentary group will pave the way for the 2023 budget for all departments of the state government.

In total, this is 71.2 billion euros for this year.

Bavaria budget 2023: the presumed winners

The

listed in advance which departments are likely to do particularly well in 2023:

• Ministry for Housing, Construction and Transport

  with Christian Bernreiter (CSU): + 26 percent 

• Ministry of Culture

  with Michael Piazolo (free voters): about + 300 million euros

• Ministry of Science

  with Markus Blume (CSU): about + 300 million euros

When asked by

, however, Bernreiter's ministry admitted that the increase in the department was "essentially due to the increase in regionalization funds by the federal government and the funds provided for the introduction of the Germany ticket".

Bavaria budget 2023: the criticism

Among other things, the ORH accused the state parliament of expensive mistakes or inadequacies in planning competitions, the granting of corona provision flat rates for private clinics or the procurement of bicycles for the Ministry of the Environment.

Criticism also came from the Bavarian FDP and the Bavarian Greens.

"The ORH report reveals that the Söder government likes to announce a lot, but only implements a little," criticized Tim Pargent, spokesman for finance for the Greens in the state parliament.

The current draft budget is "actually a cut," said FDP budget expert Helmut Kaltenhauser to

.

Bavaria budget 2023: Füracker's replica

Although the planned budget for 2023 is only a good 60 million euros less than in the previous year, Bavaria is not spared inflation either.

According to BR, the Treasury Department dismissed such concerns.

After deducting the special corona burdens in 2022, there would even be an increase in spending of a good five percent for 2023, according to the report from the Ministry of Finance.

However, it is expected that the budget security reserve at the end of the year will only amount to a good two billion euros.

For comparison: at the end of 2021 it was still a good eight billion euros.

Traffic light coalition: The Scholz cabinet at a glance

Traffic light coalition: The Scholz cabinet at a glance

Bavaria budget 2023: self-praise of the CSU

Before the general debate on the 2023 budget began, there were various press releases from Bavarian CSU politicians.

There were digs at the traffic light with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), who – as of today – has not yet completed her coalition committee in the Chancellery.

The parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer criticized an "irresponsible spending policy in the federal government", whereas Bavaria sets "clear priorities": "The basis of our prosperity are large and small companies, global players and craftsmen."

“We do not create any non-transparent shadow budgets and do not engage in fraudulent labels or circumvent the debt brake.

We only spend the money that we take in," said financial policy spokesman Josef Zellmeier.

According to

information, the 2023 budget will probably be decided on Thursday (March 30) with the majority of the government factions.