After the failed adoption of the new citizens’ allowance, the FDP has once again sent out signals for a possible compromise between the traffic light coalition and the opposition Union.
“It’s no good if everyone stays up in the air,” said FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr to the newspapers of the Funke media group (Tuesday) before the talks in the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The Union spread “fairy tales if it depicts the first six months as a sanction-free period,” said Dürr. Only the possible sanctions for recipients that are irrelevant at the beginning of the purchase should be eliminated. The aim is to reduce bureaucracy. “But if the Union needs this symbol, I’m open to maintaining sanction options.” The Union has opposed the planned “trust period” of half a year, during which recipients of citizen benefit are threatened with virtually no cuts in benefits in the event of misconduct.
Coalition wants to create work incentives with citizen money
However, the FDP politician ruled out increasing the amounts of the current Hartz IV rates alone, as the Union leaders had demanded. “If we only increase the standard rates, as the Union wants, we reduce the incentive to take up work.” In fact, the coalition wants to create additional work incentives with the basic income for training and further education and for part-time work.
The citizens’ allowance planned by the traffic light was not able to prevail in the decisive vote in the Bundesrat on Monday. At a special session, several countries led or involved by the Union voted against or abstained. Now the mediation committee is to find a solution by the end of November – otherwise the citizens’ allowance, with which the traffic light wants to overcome the Hartz IV system, threatens to fail completely.
The Union faction continues to insist on doing without the “trust period”. “There must be no doubt that sanctions can be imposed from the start,” said the parliamentary director of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, who is a member of the mediation committee, of the “Augsburger Allgemeine” (Tuesday).
Criticism of Union from the Child Protection Association
The Child Protection Association criticized the Union-led countries for blocking citizen income. “The refusal attitude of the Union when it comes to citizen money is indecent,” said the President of the Child Protection Association, Heinz Hilgers, the editorial network Germany (Tuesday). Families with children are particularly hard hit by the current crises. The President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Marcel Fratzscher, took the same line. “The rejection of the CDU and CSU is a fatal signal to solidarity in society in difficult times,” he told the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post” (Tuesday).
The joint general association called on the federal and state governments to come to a quick agreement. “We expect quick decisions in the interests of those affected,” said the association’s general manager, Ulrich Schneider, the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” (Tuesday). “Anyone who doesn’t act quickly and consistently now accepts that poverty will continue to rise and that people’s needs will increase.”
Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) had previously emphasized that he relied on quick mediation. The committee could meet as early as next week.
