Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) said today that the first cases of damage caused by the Ukraine war would already be announced in the federal government’s default liability, but a total volume might not yet be forecast.
In an initial forecast today in the main committee of Parliament, Brunner estimated the budgetary risk for 2022 at 500 million to 1 billion euros. Regarding the global guarantees of the federal government for exports and foreign investments, Brunner calculated that the liability framework of 40 billion euros, which has been set in the Export Promotion Act since 2017 EUR 27.8 billion or 69.5 percent had been utilized by the end of March 2022.
Compared to the previous quarter and the previous year, the utilization of the liability framework has thus fallen, which according to the report is essentially due to the expiry of large counter-guarantees. New commitments increased compared to the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2022, new guarantees totaling 1.203 billion euros were assumed. Of this, around EUR 416 million was accounted for by guarantees and around EUR 787 million by bills of exchange. A total of five guarantees were given, some of which exceeded EUR 10 million.
banking package
Brunner spoke regarding the banking package that was decided in view of the financial and economic crisis in 2008: At the end of March 2022, it recorded a negative balance of around 9.55 billion euros. Income of around 3.42 billion euros was offset by payments (including refinancing costs) of around 12.97 billion euros. The package provides for a maximum of 23.5 billion euros. According to the minister, around 10.4 billion euros are still available for measures under the Financial Market Stability Act.