As of: January 29, 2024, 12:15 p.m
By: Mark Stoffers
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“Citizen’s money” can be read on the homepage of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa/Illustration
The traffic light coalition is heading for another budget crisis.
There are demands from the FDP that ministries have to save money - including on citizens' money.
Berlin – Finance Minister Christian Lindner recently caused a stir with a statement about citizens’ money.
However, the announcement of a zero round of the citizen's benefit increase in 2025 caused dissatisfaction among Labor Minister Hubertus Heil.
The SPD politician reprimanded his traffic light colleague with a clear announcement: “Adaptation is not determined in political talk shows.”
Citizens' allowance increase in 2025 “would certainly not be particularly well received”
Now the finance minister is receiving support from within his own ranks in the debate about possible cuts and savings in the 2025 citizen's benefit increase.
In the opinion of FDP politician Torsten Herbst, a further increase in citizens' benefits would “certainly not be particularly well received,” said the budget expert.
However, Herbst's statement about citizens' money is not a coincidence, but rather refers to the possible next budget crisis that the traffic light is heading towards.
The FDP expert is worried about the billion-dollar financial gap in the federal budget for 2025, which is why he is calling for cuts in all departments.
It's not just the citizen's benefit increase that's affected: FDP politicians are calling for austerity measures in the 2025 budget
“Every specialist ministry must now deliver real savings and question entire projects and tasks,” Herbst told the
Bild
newspaper on Saturday.
Sweeping up is no longer enough.
The FDP insists on “real prioritization”.
There can only be two overarching priorities, namely security and prosperity, said Herbst.
“Security internally and externally as well as economic and locational development.” This primarily refers to economic development and relief as well as the budget of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD).
Savings in the 2025 budget should also affect citizens' allowance increases
However, the FDP's budget spokesman, Otto Fricke, emphasized to
Bild
that Pistorius also had to "help and tell" Finance Minister Christian Lindner where he wanted to get additional money from.
Herbst suggested cutting aid payments to China and India: “States with space programs hardly need to receive development money from Germany anymore.” His statement about savings on citizens' money was made in exactly this context.
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Aside from a possible zero round of the increase in 2025, the debate about citizens' money continues to smolder elsewhere.
While Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently took a position on the citizen's benefit discussion, the head of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles, also appeared
"to be honest, irritated" in an interview with the
Editorial Network Germany (RND).
Citizens' money debate: BA boss expresses criticism of the CDU and CSU's planned cuts to refugees
In particular, the BA boss criticized the statements and plans of the CDU and CSU for Ukrainian citizens' benefit recipients with unusual clarity.
In Nahles' opinion, in the citizen's money debate, "you can't change horses in the middle of a gallop."
In addition, Nahles attempted to dispel the myth that the wage gap requirement was not sufficiently safeguarded by citizens' benefits and that the unemployed were denied reasonable work.
“The wage gap has widened due to the significant increase in the minimum wage,” says the BA boss about another point of discussion in the criticism of citizens’ money.
“From our point of view, it’s always worth working.
The public claimed that citizen’s benefit was so attractive that people had quit their jobs to receive citizen’s benefit instead.”
Nahles, who had already doubted the sense of Heil's citizen's money sanctions, also provided evidence of this in an interview with the
RND
.
“We don’t see that in the statistics.
In 2023, 341,200 people slipped from employment in the primary labor market into the citizen's benefit system.
This is the lowest since 2015.”