Bundestag approves Germany's supplementary budget for 2023
Kyiv • UNN
The German Bundestag has passed a supplementary budget for 2023 that allows borrowing outside the constitutional "debt brake" due to the emergency situation related to the war in Ukraine.
The Bundestag has approved a supplementary budget for 2023. To do this, German MPs suspended debt reduction for the fourth year in a row. This is reported by UNN with reference to Spiegel.
Details
Parliament supported the decision to suspend the debt brake by 414 votes, with another 242 voting against and nine abstentions.
The government justified the suspension of the constitutionally enshrined debt brake, which limits net debt borrowing to 0.35% of GDP, by claiming that the war in Ukraine is an emergency.
With the supplementary budget , the federal government has exceeded the amount of borrowing allowed by the "debt brake" by 44.8 billion euros, with planned new borrowing amounting to 70.6 billion euros.
Of this amount, 43.2 billion euros are earmarked for supporting gas, district heating, and electricity prices.
Supplement
The situation with the adoption of the German budget turned into chaos after the November decision of the Constitutional Court. Then the judge ruled that the government cannot redirect 60 billion euros of unused funds from the COVID pandemic to climate projects.
As a reminder,
the German government approved a supplementary budget for 2023with which it plans to legally secure loans that have already been used to contain energy prices, in particular to overcome the energy crisis caused by Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and to support those affected by this year's floods.