Budgetary principles in contempt: the court of auditors against Nachtragsetat

The Federal court rejected the second supplementary budget for constitutional reasons. The Federal government wants to make with him this year, a total of 218,5 billion euros in new debt. "This means that almost 43 percent of the budgeted expenditures are funded credit – a historical value," underlines the independent authority in its opinion on the hearing in the Bundestag's budget Committee on Monday.

Manfred Schäfers

economic correspondent in Berlin.

in the opinion of the Federal court of auditors, the reserves by a total of 48.2 billion euros should be used this year. "For one thing, this step in the Constitution appears legally warranted." The repeated use of an extraordinary emergency situation forbid if other coverage would be the possibilities available. "Just for such a purpose – compensation of unplanned burden has been formed the reserve," write the experts of the court of auditors.

on The other a renunciation of the use of the exemption provision of Finance is economically feasible, the report says. In the case of full use of the reserve funds, the funding deficit would have amounted to 14.3 billion euros. The waiver of the economically controversial temporary lowering of VAT, a Net additional borrowing could be avoided. If necessary, this could be the view of the court of auditors also with a stronger participation of the countries, this holds already for "appropriate".

"The opposite is noticeable in the case"

As the court of auditors critical of some expenditure, which were incorporated in the supplementary budget, not this year, to drain. This is to the detriment of the budgetary principles of Annuality, the maturity as well as of the financial truth. He has, in addition to the fact that the Federal constitutional court has granted a landmark ruling of great importance. The Federal government's Argument, with the full waiver of the reserves strengthened the "financial capacity for political action of the Federal government in the coming years," the court is not convincing.