Budget Committee of Bundestag adopts state budget for 2024

The Budget Committee of the Bundestag (Parliament of Germany) approved the budget for 2024 with expenditures of about €476.8 billion, new loans worth about €39 billion and compliance with the rule of the so-called debt brake, which, with a small margin of error, prohibits spending more funds from the budget than it receives, Azernews reports, citing foreign media outlets.

After several weeks of political struggle and difficult decisions on austerity, the federal budget for the current year has been adopted. The Bundestag and the Bundesrat (House of Representatives of the federal states) are due to make a final decision on this issue in early February.

It should be noted that on December 13, 2023, after lengthy negotiations, the German government generally agreed on the draft budget for 2024. The authorities found themselves in a difficult situation due to the verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court, which banned spending €60 billion on climate and environmental projects, which led to a serious budget crisis in the republic. Initially, these funds were allocated to combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, but the government of Olaf Scholz redistributed them into a new fund. The court ruled almost two years later that the decision was unconstitutional. Now the Cabinet of Ministers has to find these funds from other sources to finance already agreed projects.