The budget is already wasted (nd-aktuell.de)

The last double budget in Brandenburg for the years 2019/2020 was still under the old red-red coalition and the then finance minister Christian Görke (left). The then opposition CDU accused him of tying things down for the year after the 2019 state elections. Now the CDU governs with the SPD and the Greens as coalition partners and another double budget is planned, which will extend into the next legislative period, even if this time only for a few months. A state election is due in autumn 2024 – and a double budget is planned for 2023/2024. In the meantime, the coalition under Görke’s successor Katrin Lange (SPD) had only decided on budgets for one year at a time in the unpredictable times of the corona crisis.

The state government had planned the double budget at the beginning of the year, when the pandemic subsided and Russia had not yet attacked Ukraine and thus triggered a new crisis. Now there are uncertainties again. One billion euros from the federal government’s next relief package have not yet been priced in because it is not clear whether they will actually come. The budget does not yet reflect whether Brandenburg will add something to relieve its citizens and businesses of the exploding energy prices – there has already been talk of a sum in the hundreds of millions.

“It has never been easy to draw up a budget,” Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) remembers on Tuesday when he presented the double budget, which still has to be discussed and approved by the state parliament. Woidke has experienced a lot over the years as Minister of Agriculture, Minister of the Interior and finally, since August 2013, as Prime Minister.

“Today you see a very satisfied Finance Minister,” said Finance Minister Lange in the afternoon after the cabinet had initially approved her budget draft. She assumes that the state parliament will decide on a “solid and sustainable double budget” by the end of the year. After record spending of 17.2 billion euros in the Corona year 2021, Brandenburg should make do with 15.5 billion in the coming year and 15.4 billion in the year after next. The state benefits from the VAT that food and other things have become so extremely expensive. Brandenburg is now calculating with 10.5 billion euros in tax revenue in 2023 and 10.9 billion in 2024. Last year the state collected 9.5 billion. More taxes with falling spending will result in an unprecedented tax coverage ratio of 71.2 percent in 2024. That means the finance minister expects that 71.2 percent of the country’s spending can then be paid for by taxes. In the current year it is only 64.3 percent. In the past, Brandenburg was still very much dependent on the drip of the federal government or the state financial equalization and had to go into debt. In 2024, net borrowing, i.e. new debt, is expected to amount to a comparatively modest 24.3 million euros. Brandenburg will be in debt with 22.2 billion euros if everything goes according to plan.

But that is the question. “No one knows what will happen in the next 24 or 36 months,” admits Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU). »The recession has started. The pressure on state budgets will continue to increase.« Prime Minister Woidke also confirms: »We are currently living in a phase of uncertainty.«

Nevertheless, all departments of the government receive a surcharge. The budget provides for 1,221 additional posts in state service, including 564 for teachers and 122 for police officers. With this increase in the police force, the goal agreed in the coalition agreement of employing 8,500 police officers has also been achieved. The total number of posts in the state service will be increased to 51,892. In 2010, when the old red-red coalition started, there were almost 50,000 jobs, after controversial austerity measures at their lowest point in 2015, there were only 46,934.

According to left-wing faction leader Sebastian Walter, the draft budget for 2023/2024 is “already waste” because it does not react to the plight of citizens and companies.