BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s FDP leader Christian Lindner, who is pushing to become finance minister in a three-way coalition government, has poured cold water on a proposal to enable higher public investment for the shift toward a green economy by taking on more debt next year.
“I think the already planned net borrowing of 100 billion euros for next year is already sufficient, to put it cautiously,” Lindner told the conservative newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Lindner added it was important for his business-friendly Free Democrats that the first budget of the future coalition government met “all the requirements of solidity”.
Lindner is wrangling with Greens co-leader Robert Habeck over who should get the powerful finance minister job and how Berlin should finance more public investments for a faster transformation towards a carbon-neutral economy.
Two people familiar with the coalition talks have told Reuters that the three parties working to form Germany’s new coalition government are discussing higher federal borrowing next year to allow a one-time, multi-billion-euro injection into the government’s climate investment fund.
To create more fiscal fire power, the parties are mulling a proposal to use the emergency clause for the debt brake rule in the constitution for a third consecutive year and take on more debt than the initially planned 100 billion euros in 2022, the sources said.
The plan would allow parties to steer clear of creating off-budget investment vehicles, which had been floated as an alternative idea to circumvent debt limits and enable more public investment to speed up the shift towards a green economy.
(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; Editing by Alison Williams)
