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Berlin – The traffic light coalition is once again having problems with its federal budget for the coming year. The agreement recently reached is now in jeopardy again. Two scientific assessments have shown that “further discussions within the federal government and in the context of parliamentary deliberations are necessary,” the Federal Ministry of Finance said in its justification.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had commissioned the review because there were doubts as to whether individual projects in the federal budget were constitutionally and economically viable. These projects were intended to halve the financing gap of 17 billion euros that still existed after the negotiations between the traffic light coalition. Otherwise, Lindner had warned, there was a risk of budget implementation being blocked.

The traffic light coalition hoped to compensate for a good nine billion simply by ensuring that the ministries never actually use all the funds they are entitled to at the end of the year. This is normal, as billions of euros have regularly been left over in recent years. But plugging a hole of 17 billion in this way seems unrealistic. Lindner had Handelsblatt has already announced that it will not allow a budget to be passed with such a hole.

The reports have now raised doubts about the planned plans to close the financial gap. From the perspective of the Ministry of Finance, austerity measures must now be negotiated again. “Measures to improve the accuracy of social spending, on which no political agreement has yet been reached, could also reduce the need for action,” said ministry circles.

It is unclear how and whether the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), like other ministries, will have to make further savings. The previous plans for the BMG were humane in terms of the need to save money.

According to the plans, the ministry had to make do with around 270 million euros less funding next year than this year. Around 16.4 billion euros have been budgeted for 2025. This year it was around 16.7 billion euros.

The lower budgeted funds are mainly due to lower follow-up expenditure as a result of the pandemic. In 2025, around 150 million euros less will be spent on financing pandemic preparedness contracts than this year. A further 140.5 million euros will be lost because the federal government’s payments to the health fund for burdens caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic will be completely canceled.

As before, the federal subsidy to the statutory health insurance (GKV) remains the largest block of expenditure at 14.5 billion euros. One drawback: more money has not been budgeted for. Neither the rising costs of care nor the additional costs expected for the GKV due to the numerous laws have been taken into account.

Meanwhile, the situation of the health insurance companies is worsening and the nursing care funds are also continuing to struggle, not to mention the increasing personal contributions to care. At the same time, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had ruled out cuts in benefits. © may/dpa/aerzteblatt.de