Traffic turnaround in danger: Minister Hermann has to fear that the expansion of local public transport will get stuck - money is running out due to the consequences of the crisis. The Green therefore touches on a taboo.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Baden-Württemberg's green transport minister Winfried Hermann is shaking the debt brake in view of the serious economic consequences of the Ukraine war and the corona pandemic. "In this crisis situation, which obviously requires a lot of clout from the state, you can't say like the Federal Minister of Finance, but now I'm serious about the debt brake," said Hermann of the German Press Agency, alluding to Christian Lindner from the FDP. Instead, massive investments must be made in the restructuring of the economy, climate protection and the traffic turnaround. The Green politician can imagine a special fund - like that for the Bundeswehr.
Hermann said that the Corona crisis is not out yet and that the follow-up costs have to be borne. "We are under grave threat from war and the expenses that it brings, and now we face a gas and energy crisis. How many more occasions are needed to ponder what the right policy response is?" Lindner's approach is wrong in this situation. The debt brake is "a concept from 15 years ago, when the national debt went through the roof, the interest payments were immeasurable and where you somehow had to say it's over".
The politician from the left wing of the Greens said about a special fund: "I can imagine that, although it's not easy. A special fund is a debt, just outside the budget." Hermann continued: "But from my point of view as a pacifist, it would have been wiser to set up a special fund for climate protection and peacekeeping than for the rearmament and modernization of the Bundeswehr." The Bundeswehr is already getting a lot of money. "We spend almost as much as Russia on the military and still don't seem to have a capable army." You could get the idea: "We have sunk the money in the Bundeswehr with modest benefit. In modern, digital times, I think an upgraded army is not the only answer to creating security and peace."
Hermann also called on the traffic light federal government to finally abolish climate-damaging subsidies for diesel and company cars. "But regulatory measures such as the speed limit should no longer be taboo." The minister warned that Germany could miss its climate targets without investments and further measures. "The whole transformation threatens to fail if we now only focus on repair measures in the case of Corona, on repair measures in the energy supply, because the wrong policy has been made for decades." He called for seeing the current crisis as a "transformation accelerator".
The debt brake is anchored in the Basic Law and in the state constitution of Baden-Württemberg, according to which new loans are only possible in exceptional cases - for example in the case of natural disasters and other emergency situations. The federal and state governments, for example, have taken on significantly more new debt than otherwise permitted to deal with the pandemic. Otherwise there is very limited scope. Only in the event of an economic downturn may more new loans be taken out.
