German Vice Chancellor and Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck will not attend the ongoing COP28 summit in Dubai as previously planned, a German government spokesman said on December 3.
Mr Habeck, a senior Greens politician , was originally scheduled to attend the annual United Nations climate summit in the UAE on December 4, and then travel to Oman, Israel and Saudi Arabia, amid severe regional unrest caused by the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
However, he was asked by Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor Olaf Scholz to postpone the trip so he could focus on negotiations on the 2024 budget, after the initial spending plan was “whistled” by the Federal Constitutional Court.
“Mr. Robert Habeck has cancelled his planned trip to the COP and the region in consultation with and at the request of the Federal Chancellor and is postponing the trip to the next available date,” the spokesman said.
Mr Scholz, Mr Habeck and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) held talks on the evening of December 3 and are expected to continue negotiations throughout the week.
The three-party coalition government is racing against time to find an internal agreement on how to close the 2024 budget hole and then pass it through parliament.
The German Chancellor's office in Berlin, late on December 3, 2023, with lights still on in most buildings. Photo: DW
“I am very optimistic that we are on the way to an agreement,” Habeck told public broadcaster ARD late on December 3. “It is a difficult process, you can see that, but it (the talks) is progressing.”
If no solution is found, the situation could even topple the coalition altogether. However, all parties in the German government still say they are confident that an agreement can be reached.
Most of the lights remained on in the Chancellery in Berlin late on December 3, apparently indicating a standstill in emergency overtime work.
SPD Secretary General Kevin Kühnert told public broadcaster ZDF that evening that talks were underway as he spoke.
“Every spare minute is being used by the government members to draft a budget for 2024 that meets the terms of the Constitutional Court ruling in Karslruhe,” said Mr Kühnert.
Germany has been in a budget crisis since mid-November, when the Federal Constitutional Court – one of the country’s highest courts – ruled that the conversion of an unused €60 billion ($65 billion) Covid-19 pandemic fund into a special fund outside the regular budget for climate protection was unconstitutional.
Following the ruling, the German Finance Ministry froze the current budget and two of its largest special funds, and the German government declared a state of emergency in 2023 to restore this year's budget.
After the settlement, Germany’s budget for next year will still have a hole worth about 17 billion euros. To “patch” this hole, Mr. Lindner favors cutting social welfare spending, while Mr. Scholz and Mr. Habeck want to continue suspending the “debt brake” in 2024 and take on new debt to cover the shortfall to invest in Germany’s clean energy transition .
Minh Duc (According to DW, Bloomberg)
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