By Maria Martinez
BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany’s budget committee interrupted final deliberations on the 2024 draft budget early on Friday morning, according to the chief budget officers of the coalition government, after a constitutional court ruling threw negotiations into disarray.
Germany’s ruling coalition is scrambling to fix a large hole in its finances after a court ruling blocked the government from transferring 60 billion euros ($65 billion) in unused funds from the pandemic towards green initiatives and industry support.
The contents of the ministries’ budgets have been finalised during the committee meeting, the budget officers said.
Some specific expenditure allocations, however, will be discussed next Thursday in detail, after a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss the impact of the constitutional court ruling.
Final key budget figures and new debt figures will be made public after the meeting next Thursday, instead of this week as previously expected.
A draft of Germany’s next budget, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, envisaged new debt of about 16.6 billion euros, keeping the budget within the constitutionally enshrined debt brake, which limits the German public deficit to 0.35% of GDP.
One of the two sections of the budget that couldn’t be finalised contains key projects such as doubling military aid to Ukraine to 8 billion euros in the coming year.
On Wednesday, the constitutional court decision prompted the government to postpone the formal vote of the budget committee until next Thursday.
Despite the court ruling, the 2024 budget is expected to be passed as planned at the end of the Bundestag’s budget week on Dec. 1, according to members of the budget committee.
For an EXPLAINER on the impact of the budget ruling, see Full Story
(Reporting by Maria Martinez and Holger Hansen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Gerry Doyle)
