Solidarity Pact

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As a solidarity pact in is Germany the agreement between the federal government and provinces referred to the eastern states for the degradation division-related special charges special funding under the fiscal equalization to send by special supplementary federal grants. It should not be confused with the solidarity surcharge , which is payable by all taxpayers and is not earmarked for the construction of the east .

Solidarity Pact I

On March 13, 1993, the Federal Government and the Prime Ministers of the federal states agreed on the following points:

  • The German Unity Fund was increased to DM 160.7 billion for the last time . Payments from this fund cease to exist from 1995.
  • The new federal states are included in the state financial equalization scheme.
  • The share of the federal states in sales tax will be increased from 37% to 44%.
  • The federal deficit supplementary allocations are introduced. This ensures that the federal state financial equalization increases the financial performance of a federal state to 99.5% of the federal average.
  • The five new federal states and Berlin together receive federal transfer payments of DM 20.6 billion annually for ten years.
  • About 40% of the financial burdens of the old federal states have to be borne by the municipalities by increasing the trade tax allocation and at the same time lowering the municipal financial compensation.
  • Establishment of the Inherited Debt Redemption Fund . This brings together the debts of the Treuhandanstalt and the loan settlement fund as well as parts of the old debts of the municipal housing industry. The initial debt is DM 336 billion. Interest is paid and repaid by the federal government alone.

The Solidarity Pact I came into force in 1995 and expired at the end of 2004.

"Through it, the new federal states and their municipalities received a total of 94.5 billion euros through financial equalization from the federal government and the old federal states. This removed ecological pollution and modernized the infrastructure. Appropriate funds were used to contribute to industrial cores where appropriate and to renovate the residential building. " (bundesregierung.de 2009)

Solidarity Pact II

After just a few years it was foreseeable that the aim of Solidarity Pact I, to bring the new federal states to a level comparable to that of the western federal states by 2004, would not be achieved. That is why the Solidarity Pact II was negotiated as a continuation and agreed in 2001. Its main features are laid down in an identical resolution passed by the Bundestag and Bundesrat .

The funding provided for in Solidarity Pact II will be guaranteed up to and including 2019. The total volume is 156.5 billion euros, which the federal government is making available to the new federal states. This sum is divided into two so-called baskets:

  • Basket I comprises the legally fixed federal supplementary allocations that are granted within the framework of the financial equalization scheme. They are intended to close the infrastructure gap and to compensate for the disproportionate municipal financial strength; formally, however, they are granted as unbound assignments. This amounts to a total of € 105.3 billion up to and including 2019.
  • Basket II includes other federal grants, of which the new federal states receive more than the old federal states. This should be a total of € 51.1 billion by 2019. In 2006, the federal and state governments agreed on the question of which federal measures should be part of Basket II. The implementation takes place through increased appropriations in the respective budget law and is therefore subject to the budget sovereignty of the parliament.

The use of the funds from Basket I of Solidarity Pact II does not always take place in accordance with the requirements laid down in the law itself. In 2005, for example, according to a report by the financial scientist Helmut Seitz from the TU Dresden, 50 percent of the funds were used incorrectly. Only the federal state of Saxony used the funds correctly; Berlin used all of its resources wrongly. In some of their progress reports, the countries mention better quotas.

The exact breakdown of the funds contained in basket I is regulated in Section 11 (3) of the Act on Financial Equalization Between the Federal Government and the Länder :

In order to cover special loads caused by the division from the existing strong infrastructural pent-up demand and to compensate for disproportionate municipal financial strength, the states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia will receive the following special federal supplementary allocations in the years 2005 to 2019: 

im Jahr 2005                 10.532.613.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2006                 10.481.484.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2007                 10.379.225.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2008                 10.225.838.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2009                  9.510.029.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2010                  8.743.091.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2011                  8.027.283.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2012                  7.260.345.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2013                  6.544.536.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2014                  5.777.598.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2015                  5.061.790.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2016                  4.294.852.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2017                  3.579.043.000 Euro,
im Jahr 2018                  2.812.105.000 Euro,
und im Jahr 2019              2.096.297.000 Euro.

The amounts according to sentence 1 are distributed to the named countries using the following percentages, rounded to thousands of euros: 

Berlin                        19,020610 vom Hundert,
Brandenburg                   14,326911 vom Hundert,
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern        10,536374 vom Hundert,
Sachsen                       26,075481 vom Hundert,
Sachsen-Anhalt                15,733214 vom Hundert,
Thüringen                     14,307410 vom Hundert.

The states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia report annually to the Financial Planning Council in the context of progress reports "Aufbau Ost" on their progress in closing the infrastructure gap, the use of the funds received to reduce special burdens caused by division and the financial development of state and local budgets including the limitation of net new debt. The reports are presented by the end of September of the year following the reporting year and discussed in the Financial Planning Council with a statement from the Federal Government .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ bundesregierung.de ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bundesregierung.de
  2. ↑ German Bundestag, 14th electoral period: Motion for a resolution by the parliamentary groups SPD, BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN and PDS on the third deliberation on the federal government's draft law - printed matter 14/5951, 14/5971, 14/6533 - draft of a law on constitutional general standards for the distribution of sales tax revenue, for financial equalization among the federal states as well as for the granting of federal supplementary allocations (measure law - measure law -) , printed matter 14/6577 (PDF; 97 kB) from July 4, 2001
  3. ↑ Press release of the Federal Ministry of Transport: Tiefensee: Planning security for new states - Federal Cabinet approves Basket II of the Solidarity Pact , press release of December 13, 2006  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bmvbs.de