The ministries have to save – that’s what Finance Minister Lindner has stated. Cabinet colleague Özdemir is said to see little leeway in his department. Will there soon be a dispute over the budget?
Berlin – The announcement was clear. In view of the tense budget situation in Germany with a double-digit billion hole in the federal budget for 2025, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) urged his cabinet colleagues to save. It now takes “a joint effort” to “resolve the need for action in the federal budget,” Lindner is said to have written to the departments in March and called on them to make suggestions for savings when registering their budgets for the coming year.
This also applies to Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens). According to information from the
Bavarian Agricultural Weekly,
he is to cut his federal ministry's budget by around 250 million euros
. Whether this will succeed is questionable. The
weekly newspaper
reported
on Thursday (April 18) that it was not easy for the minister to meet the required savings targets. “It is very difficult to raise these sums in the agricultural budget,” Özdemir is said to have said in a question and answer session with agricultural journalists. Is there now a threat of a dispute with Finance Minister Lindner?
Özdemir apparently sees little potential for savings in the agricultural budget
Özdemir still has a bit of time. After Lindner pushed back the deadline for the austerity proposals, which were originally supposed to be presented on Friday (April 19th), the federal ministers now only have to deliver on May 2nd. Özdemir obviously doesn't see much savings potential in his department. According to the newspaper report, the minister believes that a large part of the budget is tied up in social insurance. Only a small proportion of the budget consists of truly movable funds. Özdemir apparently rejects the subsidy for agricultural accident insurance. It has a direct impact on income. “All I can say is, stay away,” quotes the
Wochenblatt
.
Özdemir also sees little scope for the joint task for agricultural structure and coastal protection (GAK). According to the Federal Government, this is the most important national funding instrument for supporting agriculture and forestry, the development of rural areas and improving coastal and flood protection. The GAK was already cut last year. According to the report, Özdemir referred to redeployments and flexibilization that had been made. “We now have the situation where the money is being drained one-to-one,” he assured.
Özdemir wants to use money from climate funds for moor protection and rewetting
Instead, according to the report, the minister would rather tap the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF). Through this special fund, which runs alongside the federal budget, the federal government supports projects for greater sustainability. The fund is financed from the CO₂ tax and emissions trading. As the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced in February 2024, the reserves at the beginning of 2023 amounted to almost 79 billion euros. “We have a great interest in using the money for our measures,” said Özdemir.
According to the weekly paper
, he is
primarily thinking about measures to protect moorland and re-wetting. This is actually the task of the Ministry of the Environment, but “we work closely with the Ministry of the Environment and are also pushing,” the newspaper quotes Özdemir. The Ministry of Agriculture could really use the money.
Cuts in agricultural diesel and vehicle taxes led to farmers' protests
Tough discussions are to be expected in the talks with the Ministry of Finance because the potential for conflict is high. After all, the subsequent cuts in the 2024 federal budget led to weeks of farmer protests a few months ago. In December 2023, the federal government had to make adjustments following a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court and cut around 17 billion euros from the core budget - the red pencil was also applied to the Ministry of Agriculture. But farmers didn't want to miss out on tax breaks for agricultural diesel and vehicle taxes: tractors rattled all over the country in January, temporarily paralyzing traffic in some cities.
The federal government had already partially given in and withdrawn the planned deletion of the vehicle tax exemption for agricultural and forestry machinery. At the time, Özdemir stood in front of angry farmers and said that he didn't think the extent of the removal of agricultural subsidies was right and that he himself had been taken by surprise. “We went overboard,” he said later and promised not to accept the traffic light decision on agricultural diesel subsidies. “There was no discussion with the profession beforehand and the austerity decision was corrected far too late,” Özdemir is now quoted in the
weekly paper
.
If the federal government does not introduce the tax-free reserve, there could be farmer protests again
Last month, Özdemir announced imminent proposals to ease the burden on agricultural businesses. Among other things, a tax-free risk compensation reserve for farmers is being discussed. You could then build up tax-deferred reserves that can be used to compensate in the event of damage. However
, as
agrarheute
reported on Friday (April 19), there were increasing signs that the federal government would not implement the farmers' association's demands.
Accordingly, Özdemir said in the question and answer session with the agricultural journalists that such a reserve would burden the budget with up to a billion euros. This would significantly overcompensate for the loss of agricultural diesel from 2026, which would save around €430 million in the budget. “That would be a prank on the citizenry,” the paper quoted the minister as saying. The reserve would cost more than what would be saved with agricultural diesel. According to the report, there could be fresh farmers' protests if the federal government does not introduce the tax-free reserve.
(flon)