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Daniel Günther (CDU), Prime Minister, Aminata Touré (Greens), Minister of Social Affairs, and Monika Heinold (The Greens), Finance Minister of Schleswig-Holstein.
© Christian Charisius/dpa
Black-Green wants to save with a sense of proportion.
Prime Minister Günther and Finance Minister Heinold defend their course.
The intervention in the pension fund does not change the salaries of civil servants.
Kiel - Schleswig-Holstein's Prime Minister Daniel Günther has defended the controversial budget course with emergency loans and intervention in the pension fund.
“We want to lead our country gradually through this difficult budget situation with a sense of proportion.
In order for this to succeed, we also have to use assets,” the CDU politician told the German Press Agency on Saturday.
The government wants to replenish the 1.1 billion euro fund from 2028.
In principle, this is a good instrument.
“The salaries and benefits of our civil servants remain unaffected.
They are independent of whether and to what extent countries have a pension fund.”
The Black-Green Party wants to temporarily use parts of the pension fund to cushion the necessary austerity measures.
“We want to bring income and expenses into line by 2030.
“Reliable and planned,” said Günther.
The Black-Green Party is taking responsibility with the draft budget for 2024 and has ambitious plans for consolidation.
Finance Minister Monika Heinold (Greens) told dpa, “With the 2024 budget, a savings package of 100 million euros will be launched.
From 2025 onwards, further savings contributions of 200 million euros each will follow each year until the budget is consolidated.” There is a gap of more than a billion euros in financial planning between income and expenditure.
Günther and Heinold also referred to the opposition's criticism of planned emergency loans.
“So far we have agreed with the SPD that emergency loans are necessary to overcome major crises,” said Heinold.
“Now the SPD has changed course 180 degrees and, hand in hand with the FDP, is demanding a budget without emergency loans.
The result would be even tougher austerity measures than the state government is already planning for the next few years.”
The Prime Minister referred to the SPD's push for an emergency loan of 11.6 billion euros for a socially just conversion to a climate-neutral country last year.
“In this respect, it is not very credible that, with an emergency loan in the order of 1.5 billion euros, she is now saying that the procedure is not constitutional,” said Günther.
“The fact that the SPD has now fundamentally changed its attitude after co-deciding on the emergency situation four months ago cannot be blamed on the state government.”
Like Heinold, Günther criticized the fact that the SPD did not submit its own budget proposals to the budget committee: “The SPD has always been of the opinion that the solution must be as big as the problem.
The solution of not submitting budget proposals and constructive proposals is certainly not as big as the current problem.”
The Black-Green Party is planning new debts of almost 1.65 billion euros in the budget, including 1.5 billion euros from new emergency loans.
However, the State Audit Office has doubts as to whether the consequences of the corona pandemic will still constitute a viable justification for an emergency situation in 2024.
The coalition cited the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the once-in-a-century storm surge on the Baltic Sea in October 2023 as further reasons.
The country is currently in debt with a good 32 billion euros.
The state parliament is expected to pass the budget on Wednesday.
dpa