Germany introduces new scheme to cut social spending in government coalition budget. In particular, it is planned to give employment centers the right to stop paying Burgergeld - unemployment benefits. The government also planned to reduce costs by 500 million euros as a result of the implementation of the Jobturbo reintegration program. This program is designed for refugees, in particular from Ukraine. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes about this, specifying that the final discussions on the German budget in 2024 will be at the end of this week. At this time, they plan to approve these and other federal budget austerity measures..
How unemployment benefits will be reduced in Germany.
The maximum period for which restrictions on unemployment payments are planned to be introduced is two months.. Termination of payments can be initiated as soon as Jobcenter specialists identify the user’s repeated refusal of offers of acceptable work. This should reduce budget costs by 150 million euros.
Biggest savings – reintegration through Jobturbo.
However, the federal government plans to achieve the greatest savings through the implementation of a program for the integration of refugees, especially from Ukraine, into the German labor market. This should result in a cost reduction of 500 million.
In general, the German budget 2024 provides for the attraction of new credit resources in the amount of 39 billion euros. However, the budget deficit will be covered by surplus revenues in 2023.
What will the money in the German budget be spent on
The German government will spend the most money on social spending - about 175.6 billion euros. Investments in infrastructure - railways and roads - will amount to 70.5 billion euros. The defense budget for the Bundeswehr is about 52 billion euros. Funding for medicine is being cut the most this year, believing that the crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic no longer poses a threat.
On January 29, the Norwegian government announced increased control over Ukrainian refugees.
This may reduce the number of such persons, because the country does not have enough financial resources to adequately provide for them. Also, the EU Ambassadors reached an agreement on using profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine.
In general, the number of Ukrainian refugees with temporary protection status in Europe by the end of January 2023 exceeded 4.95 million people. Germany accepted perhaps the largest number of refugees from Ukraine as a result of the outbreak of a large-scale war - up to 881.4 thousand.