Status: 13.01.2024, 19:12 PM
By: Amy Walker
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At a farmers' demonstration in Nuremberg, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) spread the thesis that without the heating law, the state would have enough money. Is he right?
Berlin – Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) railed against the traffic light government at a farmers' demonstration in Nuremberg on Friday (12 January) – and also took the opportunity to once again dish out against the so-called heating law. "If they were to take away this heating law alone, then Germany would have no financial problems," Söder told around 5000,<> farmers on Nuremberg's Volksplatz.
After lengthy discussions, the Heating Act came into force on 1 January 2024 and is intended to herald the start of the heating transition in Germany. Initially, however, the requirements will only apply to new buildings – it will only be in a few years' time that owners will have to think about renewable heating systems.
Söder blames heating law for budget dispute
Söder has made it known many times in the past year that he is not a fan of the new law. But is he really right in his claims about costs?
The answer, according to our calculations: unfortunately, it's not that simple. But it is true that a lot of money is to be spent on the heat transition. The German government plans to spend 2024.18 billion euros on the building sector in 9. A large part of this is to be spent on subsidies for new heating systems, i.e. heat pumps or other renovation measures on the home.
Markus Söder at the rally in Nuremberg © Screenshot BR.de
This money does not come from the regular federal budget, but from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF). This is a special fund from which climate protection projects are financed. The money that is in the KTF is filled by income from the CO₂ price. In other words, the tax levied on climate-damaging emissions flows into the KTF and not into the normal federal budget. According to the Federal Government, there will be a total of 2024.2027 billion euros in the KTF in the years 211 to 8. The federal government can decide to fill the KTF with additional grants, but it will not do so in 2024. So the KTF fills up by itself.
If the Heating Act did not exist, then 18 billion euros more would be available in the KTF for other climate projects. This money would not simply be available in the regular budget.
Budget 2024: Government lacked 60 billion euros
Of course, the financial problems of the federal government, which ultimately triggered the budget dispute, also had to do with the KTF. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had pushed unused Corona credit authorization in the amount of 60 billion euros into the KTF - but this was then classified as unconstitutional. The government had done the same with other special funds, such as the Economic Stabilization Fund.
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As a result, it was no longer clear which planned projects would actually receive the money from the KTF and which would not. The money for the heat transition was also hanging in the balance, as were other major government projects as well as relief projects such as the subsidies for grid fee stabilization. Other special funds were completely dissolved, so that the energy price brakes had to be ended prematurely.
17 billion euros in the normal budget - even without the heating law
But due to the budget ruling, the federal government lacked money from the regular federal budget, 17 billion euros to be exact. And in order to save this money, the federal government had to make cuts in other areas, such as agricultural diesel and the exemption from road tax for farmers. If it weren't for the heating law, the 17 billion gap would still exist, and the government would have had to save money as it was. To put it simply, the concrete numbers don't really matter, it's all about the pot in which the money is.
What is debatable, of course, is whether the 18 billion euros that are now earmarked in the KTF for the Heating Act are really well spent. Actually, the German government had once promised that the revenues from the CO₂ price would be distributed back to the citizens as climate money. This 18 billion could be put to good use. Or for the e-car subsidy, which was abolished at the end of 2023. These are political decisions that Markus Söder can complain about. But blaming the financial problems entirely on the Heating Act distorts the picture somewhat.