Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) has asked Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) to revise her draft law on basic child welfare. “It needs to be reworked,” said the FDP chairman of the “Augsburger Allgemeine” (Wednesday).
The finance minister referred to two conditions agreed by the coalition as a basic requirement for the introduction of the new social benefit. “Firstly, there must be no disproportionate administrative effort, but rather there must be less bureaucracy through digitalization,” warned Lindner. Secondly, there should be no incentives for people to stop working because of higher social benefits. Both requirements “apparently do not exist” in Paus’ current draft, said Lindner. He referred to the approximately 5,000 new jobs that the Family Minister, citing the Federal Employment Agency, wants to create so far to implement basic child welfare.
The draft law on basic child security is currently being discussed by the parliamentary groups in the Bundestag. With a view to the new positions in the administration, Paus had already signaled a willingness to compromise at the weekend – but this was apparently not enough for the coalition partner to agree to the draft in its current form. On Wednesday, the representatives of the traffic light parties want to meet for a coalition committee to discuss important issues for the federal government – basic child welfare is also likely to be an important topic of discussion.
Reichinnek: Basic child welfare debate is “smear theater”
Sharp criticism of the coalition dispute over basic child welfare came again from the Left group. Chairwoman Heidi Reichinnek criticized the debate as absolute smear theater. The actual goal of getting children out of poverty has completely taken a back seat. The sum of 2.4 billion euros earmarked for basic child welfare is ridiculous. However, at least 25 billion euros would be necessary, explained Reichinnek. “I know that sounds like a pretty big sum, but when we think about the fact that we will save 100 billion for this economy in the long term, then it all sounds a little different.” Paus’ design was also a “disaster” in terms of craftsmanship, she criticized.
With the basic child security, the federal government wants to bundle previous benefits such as child benefit, benefits from the citizen’s benefit for children or the child allowance into a single benefit. The aim is to ensure that all families who are entitled to corresponding benefits will receive them in full in the future. According to the Family Ministry, this has so far only been the case for a fraction. Basic child welfare is considered the Greens’ prestige social policy project. It is still unclear whether it can come into force next year as planned.
