Budget: Three billion euros additional: Government must help the employment agency with a new loan

Finance Minister Klingbeil makes some last-minute changes to the 2027 budget. The federal agency gets a larger loan. And there is also more money for buyers of electric cars.

Berlin. The federal government will support the Federal Employment Agency (BA) with another loan next year. It increases a loan from the federal budget to the BA by three billion euros to a total of 8.2 billion euros.

This emerges from the adjustment submission from the Federal Ministry of Finance to the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag, which is available to Handelsblatt. The BA had already announced further financial needs in advance due to higher unemployment. However, the amount was still unclear.

According to the adjustment template, the federal government has also made significant changes to the federal budget in other areas. The e-car funding will be increased from 800 million to 1.7 billion euros. According to the federal government, the reason for this is that the demand for funding is developing much more dynamically than expected.

There are also major reallocations amounting to around eleven billion euros in the defense budget. In this way, a global underspending of two billion euros will be resolved. There are also shifts in armaments projects, for example in frigates or the Tactical Wide Area Network, a radio and data network for the digitalization of the Bundeswehr. Here the expenditure will be 1.34 billion and 1.18 billion euros less than previously planned.

Further dispute over tax relief

There are also shifts in the transport and construction budget. The funding for Autobahn GmbH will be reduced by 1.98 billion euros. In return, an additional 732 million euros will flow into federal highway construction. The Federal Real Estate Agency (BImA) will also have to pay 1.5 billion euros to the federal budget next year. Klingbeil wants to use the money to close other budget gaps.

The 2026 budget will be finalized by the budget politicians in the Bundestag on Thursday. To do this, the Ministry of Finance sends the so-called adjustment template to the budget committee, with which changes are made to the budget. This year's cleanup template consists of 1,136 pages and also includes changes to the budget.

And more changes could come by Thursday. The Union and the SPD are still negotiating some points of contention. The Union is pushing for a reduction in electricity taxes and a reduction in inflation-related tax increases, known in technical jargon as “cold progression”. However, this would cause a gap in the budget of around seven billion euros, which is why the SPD rejects the tax cuts without counter-financing proposals from the Union.

Agreement on state entry into Panzerbauer

Other questions are also still open, such as when exactly the new sugar tax will come into force next year. There is disagreement about cuts in the social sector, such as housing benefit. The faction leaders wanted to continue negotiations on Monday evening. On Wednesday evening, the final changes will be incorporated into the 2027 budget via a “supplement”.

On the sidelines of the budget adjustment, it was announced that the federal government was investing 6.6 billion euros in the tank manufacturer KNDS, as it was said in parliamentary circles. Last week, the government agreed on the amount with the Bode and Braunbehrens families, who hold 50 percent of KNDS. However, the exact purchase price was previously unknown.

The owner families originally wanted to list their shares on the stock exchange. They abandoned this plan over the summer when arms stocks fell significantly on the stock exchanges. The purchase contract is scheduled to be concluded in November.