On Sunday evening, the coalition committee of the "Traffic Light" should deal with, among other things, the planned acceleration of planning for infrastructure projects as well as several proposals for climate protection and energy policy. Decisions on the budget for 2024 and the financial planning for the following years, including the financing of the Bundeswehr and the planned basic child security, are still open.
The Greens want to focus the planning acceleration on the expansion of the railway and necessary renovations. The FDP, on the other hand, is also demanding a massive expansion of the motorway network. "If we want to get better at climate protection, we have to be much faster in the construction of power lines, wind turbines, electricity storage and - from the point of view of the FDP - also in the construction of motorways," said parliamentary group leader Lukas Köhler on the "Zeit online" portal.
Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) accused the Greens of a "blockade attitude" in the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" and called for their end. But Wissing also said: "We should think back to finding solutions together."
"The expansion of the infrastructure must be based above all on needs. And there are also roads," said the spokeswoman for transport policy for the SPD parliamentary group, Dorothee Martin, to the newspapers of the Bayern media group. However, she advocated prioritizing expansion projects.
Politicians from the Greens pushed for progress in ecological restructuring. It is important "that we focus on humanity's task of fighting the climate crisis," said parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann to SWR. With a view to warnings that citizens would be overwhelmed, she assured that all measures would be socially cushioned. Haßelmann referred this particularly to the planned new regulations for the installation of new heating systems.
SPD parliamentary secretary Katja Mast called for a willingness to compromise. "It's important to emphasize what we have in common and not what separates us. And it's worth looking at what we've already done together," she told the editorial network Germany (RND). "Our goal is and remains to provide concrete, socially cushioned answers for the future of our country and its citizens," she emphasized.
FDP parliamentary group leader Meyer called for more spending discipline from the SPD and the Greens. "We are stopping the unbridled spending craze of the SPD and Greens and are now helping with cold turkey," Meyer told the newspapers of the Funke media group. "Sometimes you have to knock the bottle of schnapps from the mouth of the alcoholic," added the FDP budget politician.
The budget is about financing the ecological conversion in Germany, but also about twelve billion euros per year for the planned basic child security and an additional need for the Bundeswehr, which Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) estimates at least ten billion euros per year. Because of the many unanswered questions, Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had postponed the cabinet decision on the cornerstones of the budget, which was actually planned for mid-March, indefinitely.
Left party leader Martin Schirdewan called for an end to the "bargaining" in the traffic light coalition over basic child security. He expects the coalition committee to bring about "a new era for justice in this country," he told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung".
