The federal government launched the second supplementary budget for 2021 on Monday.

With it, credit authorizations of 60 billion euros, which were approved this year with a view to the Corona emergency, are to be pushed into a secondary budget in order to be able to use them later for investments in climate protection and the transformation of the country.

Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) spoke of a "booster" for the national economy: "This will enable us to sustainably cope with the economic consequences of the corona pandemic and start a powerful departure into a climate-neutral and digital future in Germany."

Manfred Schäfers

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Last year the black-red government acted similarly. In his submission, Lindner recalled the “tried and tested” allocation of 28 billion euros in 2020. In fact, 26.2 billion euros had flowed into the energy and climate fund at that time; the editorial inaccuracy suggests the speed with which the bill was written. In the summer of 2020, the FDP declared the redirection of funds to be unconstitutional. With the current campaign, the reserve in the fund alone has increased to around 90 billion euros. In addition, there is a reserve of 48 billion euros in the federal budget.

Criticism of the approach of the traffic light coalition came from the opposition as well as from the Federal Audit Office. The CDU budget politician Christian Haase spoke of an action that is questionable in terms of budgetary law. "The only purpose of this is to raise funds," he said. Court of Auditors' President Kay Scheller told the FAZ: “Only exceptional emergency situations can justify a renewed suspension of the debt brake. That's what the Basic Law says. "

Because of the corona pandemic, the Bundestag has enabled immense new debt of 240 billion euros for this year.

The funds were intended to fight the pandemic;

now they should be used for climate investments, and only in the coming years.

“There is then no connection to the emergency situation,” Scheller judges.

If you don't need the money to fight the pandemic this year, you have to reduce the need for credit.