There may be calm in the governing alliance for the time being, but the discussions on the 2025 budget may ignite new fires. Targeting benefits. Just on Wednesday, May Day, Social Democrat Labor Minister Hubertus Heil declared that the German welfare state will not fall apart and that there is a need for solidarity in society. Chancellor Olaf Solz in his own message chose to defend the right to a pension, that the age limit will not be increased any further and that the awarding of pensions is ultimately a matter of “decency”.

Just a day later, the Liberals came in to play down expectations of tougher benefits policy in 2025, a federal election year. And this in the context of the processes for the next German budget, which have already begun and while the “fiscal storm” of 2024 following the decision of the Constitutional Court of Karlsruhe to freeze 60 billion related to fiscal alchemies has not yet subsided.

Liberal brake on Social Democrat promises

“The debt brake (no new debt) rule is constitutional and therefore should not be taken lightly,” the Liberals’ fiscal policy chief Otto Fricke told German radio station DLF. He even rejects as incompatible with the rule in question the statements of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, also a Social Democrat, regarding a new increase in defense spending.

The German network interprets Fricke’s statements as a direct response to indirect calls on May Day for a suspension or revision of the debt rule by top government officials.

The Liberal politician thus gives a foretaste of what lies ahead in the coming months in the committees and the Plenary of the German parliament: tough negotiations for new cuts with the government’s allowance policy again on the table without taking anything for granted. On Thursday, May 2, the deadline that had been set for all individual federal ministries to submit their proposals for the 2025 budget also expired.

Red lines that seem inconsistent

As the website tagesschau.de points out, the goal of the Liberal Finance Minister Christian Lindner is to meet the debt brake at all costs in 2025 and to save more than 20 billion euros. This is a red line for the Liberals, who of course already show extremely low percentages in the polls.

At the same time, leading members of the Social Democrats set as their own red line the maintenance of the basic guarantees of the German welfare state, and in particular social welfare benefits or family policy, even within their party there are objections.

As for the Greens, they still seem to be vacillating, with Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Robert Hambeck saying at every opportunity that the next budget will be “difficult” again.

And the official opposition, however, sees in front of it another “hot summer and autumn”, according to the words of its representative for budgetary matters, Christian Haase, who, speaking on the public network, said that “all social benefits cannot be considered sacred”. The Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists do not seem prepared to support a budget of benefits, but rather of cuts.