As of: January 30, 2024, 4:45 a.m
By: Klaus-Maria Mehr
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Bavaria's government wants to present itself as a counter-model to the "unserious" traffic lights in the budget.
At the same time, Söder announced an incredible 6,000 new jobs in schools, the police and the judiciary.
Gmund – At the start of the budget meeting on Sunday, the latest coalition dispute over possible cuts in religious education was not noticeable.
When they arrived at the state government conference center in Gmund am Tegernsee, ministers, state secretaries and parliamentary group leaders were visibly relaxed.
While Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) took part in a demonstration in Munich, Söder used the Tegernsee backdrop for a 20-second Twitter statement.
United in disagreement: Söder and Aiwanger at the start of the cabinet meeting in St. Qurin on Tegernsee.
© Screenshot Twitter/X Markus Söder/dpa
Söder: “Bavaria is the counter-model to the dubious Berlin and its traffic lights.”
“We are creating exactly the opposite model to the federal government,” says Söder on a balcony in St. Quirin.
“We have no debts.
We have reserves.
At the same time, we are investing in the future.” Söder concludes with the words: “Bavaria is the alternative model to the dubious Berlin and its traffic lights.”
Twitter reactions follow promptly – warning of “economic decline”
That's the Prime Minister's announcement.
The reactions on Twitter (which is now called X) don't take long to arrive.
With the comment “Interesting”, the first user posts a link to a
Handelsblatt
article (plus content) from autumn 2023 with the headline: “Bayern – The former superstar is threatened with economic decline”.
This is primarily about the impending costs for the economy in the Free State because the CSU governments of the past two decades have completely missed the energy transition.
Lots of question marks about Bavaria's budget: No new debts, no leeway - but 6,000 new jobs
Other Twitter replies to Söder's post are in the same vein.
But aside from the Twitter scolding, the Bavarian coalition's “serious” budget ideas raise some questions.
Söder said at the beginning of the budget meeting at Tegernsee: Bavaria could invest without taking on new debt.
The goal is even to start repaying Corona loans.
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Söder is also sticking to the wind farm project in Bavaria: read the citizens' no "not a broken leg".
His Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU), on the other hand, has been warning for months about stagnating tax revenues, rising personnel costs and the unpredictable effects of the weakening economy.
“We don’t have much scope for creativity,” he told the German Press Agency.
Around 70 percent of the budget has already been earmarked for personnel costs and municipalities.
“Householding is the order of the day.
We cannot afford any major new additional expenditure.”
Söder, on the other hand, announced considerable job growth before the meeting, which is to be anchored in the new double budget for 2024/2025: an incredible 6,000 new jobs are to be created, 4,000 of which are in the education sector and the rest for the police and justice system.
Additional funds should be made available for better teacher salaries, universities, the expansion of daycare centers, housing construction and local public transport.
Söder wants to save 5,000 jobs in the long term, but exactly where remains unclear
Söder emphasizes that he would like to cut 5,000 jobs in the long term in order to ensure a lean state.
However, the Prime Minister leaves it open where exactly he wants to save these thousands of items.
Thrift sounds different.
For Söder, this is not a contradiction because “every euro will be turned around twice”, except for education.
And at the same time you make sure that you keep an emergency fund.
“For difficult times.”
Coalition partners are no longer friends: CSU at a high in the polls, Free Voters in decline
The cabinet and coalition partners can now deal with this vague, some would say contradictory objective and put together a budget.
The fact that the Free Voters' poll numbers are falling significantly in favor of the CSU despite Aiwanger's demo-hopping will not contribute to the good mood.
According to the latest survey, the Free Voters are only at 13 percent (compared to 15.8 percent in the state election), while the CSU is at 40 percent.
So one can cautiously assume that there will be little left of the self-imposed austerity in the 2024/2025 budget.
The budgets for the next two years are therefore likely to be approximately the same as in 2023.
At around 70 billion euros, the budget plan was certainly a lot, but definitely not a sign of austerity, although no new debt was taken on.
(with material from dpa)
The editor Klaus-Maria Mehr wrote this article and then used an AI language model for optimization at his own discretion. All information has been carefully checked.
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