Corona billions: Union fails in Karlsruhe with urgent application against supplementary budget

A credit authorization of 60 billion euros, which was originally intended to deal with the pandemic, can continue to be used for climate protection projects for the time being.

The Federal Constitutional Court said on Thursday that it would reject an urgent application from the Bundestag faction of the CDU and CSU.

The shift to the energy and climate fund, which was decided in the second supplementary budget for 2021, is still to be fundamentally examined in Karlsruhe.

(Az. 2 BvF 1/22)

The loans had been approved by the Bundestag because of the pandemic emergency, for which the debt brake was overridden.

But they weren't needed after all.

The federal government wants to use the money for climate protection. At the beginning of this year, the Bundestag decided to shift it to the fund.

In the spring, the Union went before the Federal Constitutional Court to have the process examined. 

She considers the actions of the federal government to be unconstitutional.

CDU leader Friedrich Merz argued that exceeding the limit of the debt brake for these loans had only been expressly approved by the Bundestag in connection with the pandemic.

In order to prevent money from the fund already being spent, the parliamentary group also submitted an application for a restraining order to the court. 

But now she was unsuccessful.

The judges of the Second Senate stated that a violation of the Basic Law does not appear to be ruled out from the outset and should be examined.

However, an interim order would have major disadvantages if the law later turned out to be constitutional.

Then the 60 billion euros would not be available for the time being, which would endanger planning security for investments, for example.

The EEG surcharge has also been financed from the funds since July.

If their abolition had to be reversed, electricity prices would increase, which means a great burden for consumers and companies.

If the redeployment later turns out to be unconstitutional, the authorizations could be withdrawn or replaced by new allocations from the budget, the court said.

There is a risk that loans will already be taken out before the decision is made.

However, it cannot be assumed that this will affect the full 60 billion euros.

In addition, the legislature has a number of options for dealing with the financial consequences for the federal budget.