BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s new coalition government will pass a supplementary budget on Monday that will see 60 billion euros ($68 billion) of unused debt from this year’s federal budget channelled into a climate and transformation fund, the finance minister said.
“I have handed the draft supplementary budget to the cabinet today,” Christian Lindner said on Friday, confirming a Reuters report.
The coalition wants to deploy the funds to make critical public investments in climate protection measures – from charging points for electric vehicles to better insulating homes – and the digitalization of Europe’s largest economy.
The debt-financed injection means that Berlin will likely make nearly full use of the 240 billion euro debt ceiling originally granted by its parliament for 2021.
Germany will exceed its credit limit by 207 billion euros ($234 billion) in 2021, leading to parliament having to renew its approval to suspend the debt brake, a draft document seen by Reuters showed on Friday.
($1 = 0.8866 euros)
(Reporting by Christian Krämer and Holger Hansen; Writing by Maria Sheahan, Kirsti Knolle, Editing by Miranda Murray and Maria Sheahan)
