2023-08-28 00:12:28
Shortly before their cabinet meeting at Meseberg Castle, the traffic light government agreed on the controversial issue of basic child security. After hours of negotiations, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) agreed on Sunday evening the key points for the new family benefit. This was reported by the dpa news agency, citing several sources. Details are expected to be presented this Monday.
The agreement was preceded by months of dogged fundamental discussions, especially between the Greens and the FDP. Scholz, Paus and Lindner met in the evening for talks in the Chancellery, around midnight it became known that they had gotten together in the basic child security system.
Green circles now said: “Tonight the agreement on basic child security was reached. Federal Minister Lisa Paus can count it as a success that she managed to set the course for the project.” Lindner had previously said in the ZDF summer interview that he expected a quick agreement on key points. After that, associations and states would be involved, and only then would there be a finished draft law that would go to the Bundestag.
In their coalition agreement, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP agreed to introduce basic child security. Previous benefits such as child benefit, benefits from the citizen benefit for children or the child allowance are to be bundled in it. With more transparency and with the help of a central platform, many families are to be reached who, due to ignorance or bureaucratic hurdles, have not been able to access the funds to which they are entitled. “We want to get more children out of poverty and are focusing in particular on digitization,” says the coalition agreement.
However, a permanent dispute had developed between the Greens and the FDP regarding how much money the state should now spend on basic child security and whether benefits should be increased or not. The responsible family minister, Paus, had initially estimated twelve billion euros per year, she later spoke of up to seven billion euros. Finance Minister Lindner named a sum of initially only two billion euros as a “note item”. It was initially unclear what amount the coalition had agreed on in the talks.
Even before the summer break, the coalition partners had repeatedly argued, particularly violently regarding the so-called heating law. This Tuesday, Scholz and the ministers will meet at Schloss Meseberg near Berlin for their fifth cabinet retreat. Among other things, it should be regarding a state-subsidized industrial electricity price or a possible rental price brake. Topics that probably contain new potential for conflict for the traffic light.
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