€560.9 billion signed off, €5.4 billion still open: the budget's last question

The night session ended on Friday morning, and the number is a record. After a final sitting of about 16 hours, the budget committee approved federal spending of about €560.9 billion for 2027, €5.5 billion more than the government had proposed and €36.4 billion, or 6.9%, more than in 2026¹. “The lid is now on,” the SPD parliamentary manager Wiese said on ARD-ZDF morning television, as BR reported it².

The lid does not cover everything. Whether Union and SPD can still fund a cut in electricity tax for all consumers is unresolved, and the coalition leaders will discuss it on Tuesday¹. Friedrich Merz said in Dublin he was holding to his goal of cutting the tax “to the European minimum” from next year “in full”; Lars Klingbeil said he was open to it, but only with “serious” counter-financing¹. The cut would need about €5.4 billion, a sum WirtschaftsWoche calls almost small against the total, but no counter-financing proposal is yet known¹. Ideas reported include EEG account surpluses, cuts to Climate and Transformation Fund programmes, or the CSU giving up its extended mothers’ pension; CDU budget politician Christian Haase called the last of those unrealistic¹.

The ledger underneath: net borrowing in the core budget rises from €98.0 billion to almost €123 billion, plus €57.8 billion from the infrastructure fund and €29.6 billion from the Bundeswehr fund, more than €210 billion of new debt in all¹. Only 2021, the Covid year, was higher, at €215.4 billion¹. Desk arithmetic: €123 billion of €560.9 billion is about 22% of core spending; WirtschaftsWoche’s “every third euro” counts the special funds as well¹. The debt brake is still met, because special-fund borrowing and some defence debt are exempt¹.

For you: the electricity tax is the line that reaches your meter, and it is the one big promise still without a counter-financing plan¹. Normally a budget is not reopened after this session; Haase says changes are possible until the final vote, even if that has not happened before¹. Watch Tuesday, then the last week of November.