Chancellery, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of the Environment, Visitor Center of the Bundestag plus other buildings: The federal government has a whole series of expensive new construction projects in the planning stage, which, according to research by the news portal t-online, together cost at least 2.1 billion euros.
A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Finance told the portal that the need had to be re-examined because more mobile and home work had been done since the corona pandemic. Therefore, “all spatial planning from the time before the pandemic should also be reviewed in a meaningful way”.
The CSU agreed. “It’s not the time for ostentatious prestige traffic lights,” explained General Secretary Martin Huber. “While many people don’t know how to fill their refrigerators at the end of the month, the insatiable traffic light debt squanders billions on unnecessary swanky projects.”
The budgetary spokeswoman for the left in the Bundestag, Gesine Lötzsch, pointed out that a large part of the civil servants are already working from home. “This development must lead to a reduction in office space,” she told t-online. A moratorium on further federal buildings is therefore necessary. The federal government is also hiring more and more staff. “It can’t go on like this. We need a personnel cap.”
The projects in detail:
Next to the Federal Chancellery, an arc-shaped new building made of sandstone with around 400 offices is to be built for around 777 million euros. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) recently questioned this project, for which initial work has already begun. It should cost between 600 and 800 million euros and be built from 2025. As reported by t-online, citing the federal budget for 2023, there are also 113 million euros for an office building on the Spree. The Federal President and his staff are to move in there for around five years, while Bellevue Palace is being completely renovated. It is unclear who will then move in there. An extension building for the Ministry of the Environment is to be built for around 240 million euros. Employees of the Berlin House of Representatives and “users who have not yet been determined” are also to be accommodated there, as t-online reports. According to the tender, a ministerial building is planned there for 200 million euros. According to the Federal Institute, a further 980 jobs are to be created here. “A final user has not yet been determined,” the news portal quoted the authority as saying. In addition, the costs for the new visitor center of the Bundestag are increasing. According to media reports, they are now estimated at 200 million euros.
