Once again, a special fund should do the trick: After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced on Sunday that he would make an additional 100 billion euros available to the Bundeswehr via this instrument.

In this way, the SPD politician wants to resolve the conflict of objectives, on the one hand to train the Bundeswehr in the new confrontation with Moscow and on the other hand to keep the promise of the traffic light coalition to operate within the framework of the debt brake again from 2023 onwards.

The latter was and is important to the FDP, with Finance Minister Christian Lindner at the helm.

Manfred Schaefers

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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In his government statement, the Federal Chancellor outlined the framework for the new Bundeswehr special fund: it will be endowed with a one-off amount of 100 billion euros from the 2022 federal budget.

The funds are to be used for necessary investments in defence, not least for the realization of armaments projects.

He asked the parties represented in the Bundestag for support in order to secure the special fund in the Basic Law.

In this way, the German head of government wants to ensure that Germany can invest more than 2 percent of its gross domestic product in its defense every year.

Latent conflict smolders on

The procedure via a secondary budget is not new.

A few weeks ago, the traffic light coalition pushed through a supplementary budget of 60 billion euros for 2021 in the Bundestag.

There was also a seemingly technical change: the associated loans are all booked in the past year, only then do they increase the deficit, although the federal government taps into the credit market in other years.

The reason: Last year, the strict debt rule in the Basic Law was suspended due to the corona pandemic.

The Union is preparing a lawsuit against that law.

She argues: You shouldn’t secretly make climate loans out of corona deficits.

Strengthening of military capability

This latent conflict continues to smolder - and explains why the federal government wants to play it safe this time and adapt the Basic Law.

Opposition leader Friedrich Merz promised Chancellor Scholz support on central points such as the tough sanctions against Russia and better equipment for the Bundeswehr, but he remained remarkably cautious on the issue of special funds.

The CDU chairman emphasized that the new distribution of debt had to be "talked about calmly and in detail".

Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) wanted to keep new debt below the threshold of 100 billion euros until the middle of last week.

After Russia's attack on Ukraine, that's a thing of the past.

The debate about strengthening military capability should not be conducted "with the warning of new debts," he emphasized in the Bundestag.

The 100 billion euros planned by the federal government for the Bundeswehr are “in this world situation, initially investments in our freedom”.

He justified the next special fund with the words: "You cannot correct the Bundeswehr's neglect for at least fifteen years from the current budget." For the amendment of the Basic Law, the coalition needs the support of the Union in the Bundestag and the states in the Bundesrat.

"We expect,

In the past, federal governments of all political persuasions have irregularly set up special funds to finance special tasks: reconstruction after floods, the expansion of childcare, the digitization of the country.

For the independent Federal Court of Auditors, the growing number of such side budgets is a nuisance.

He has repeatedly complained that this violates important budgetary principles such as unity and annuality, which require all income and expenditure to be recorded in a single budget for each year.