Budget in Leipzig at limits: Financing the energy and transport turnaround a challenge

The additional costs for the energy and transport turnaround are pushing the budget in Leipzig and also other municipalities to its limits. "Whoever orders the transport turnaround also needs an idea to implement it financially," said Leipzig's mayor Burkhard Jung. Would not come support from the federal government and the states, it is not to be created, stressed the SPD politician.

Accordingly, the budget in Leipzig has a volume of about 2.6 billion euros annually. The costs of the heat conversion alone amount to up to six billion euros in the coming years. In addition, there are costs in each case in the low three-digit million range for the wastewater supply and schools. Jung called for a round table at which the federal government, states and municipalities can find lasting structural solutions. "We have the burning expectation that the federal and state governments will not leave us hanging. So far, we are not properly heard there."

And this financing problem has almost all cities in Germany - whether rich or poor, as Jung further said, who has been on the board of the German Association of Cities since 2007. In Leipzig alone, the annual operating costs for local public transport (ÖPNV) are 300 million euros. About 90 percent is financed locally and only about half by ticket sales.

For the coming year, additional costs for energy (14 million) and personnel (17 million) are expected in public transport. In five years, the subsidy will be 120 million euros, Jung explained. "And if there are no funds for the transport turnaround, if the federal and state governments do not support the municipalities permanently and reliably, the goals will have to be postponed."

In addition, Jung called for "new, tax-financed ideas for funding." For him, these include the dismantling of tax privileges, a city toll in the inner cities, as well as a kind of local transport levy or employer levy for public transport. However, this would require changes in the law by the federal government. Municipalities cannot determine this on their own.