SPD sticks to demand for investment fund

The SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament is sticking to its call for a "Saxony Fund" for important investments in the state and wants to address this in talks with its potential coalition partners, the CDU and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW). Faction leader and financial expert Dirk Panter also sees this confirmed by an expert opinion on the constitutional scope for investment.

The parliamentary group commissioned the report from lawyer Uwe Berlit, the former presiding judge at the Federal Administrative Court. In it, he examined the possibility of financing investments without having to amend the constitution. This is because Saxony has a very rigid debt brake that only allows borrowing in very specific exceptional cases. An adjustment to the debt brake was defeated by the CDU parliamentary group in the last legislature.

Expert: Civil servants' pension fund is overfunded

He is also very much in favor of a balanced budget, but not at any price, Berlit explained at the presentation of his 83-page report. The debt brake does not include guarantees, warranties or other guarantees that could benefit private investments, among other things.

However, Berlit sees the Free State's generation fund as a major starting point for raising money. Almost one billion euros are allocated to this fund every year in order to alleviate the state's current and future pension burdens for civil servants. According to Panter, there are now 12 billion euros in the fund. Berlit spoke of an "overfunding". The Saxon fund is endowed in the same way as that of Baden-Württemberg, which has three times the population and a significantly higher proportion of civil servants.

SPD puts investment needs in Saxony at 10 billion euros

The SPD had already put the investment needs in Saxony at 10 billion euros in August, a few weeks before the state elections. The money is needed for schools, hospitals and housing, among other things, it said at the time. Panter now sees the Dresden "bridge case" - the collapse of part of the Carola Bridge - as reviving the debate on renewing dilapidated infrastructure. "In our view, there can be no 'business as usual'."

A solid budgetary policy is a tradition in Saxony and is also the right thing to do. We don't want to be "hasbardeurism" and simply waste money, but rather look at what is necessary. One should not cling to an "ideological mantra". By his own admission, however, Panter has also gotten the impression that there is a rethink on this issue within the CDU parliamentary group.

In concrete terms, the SPD wants to divert 3.5 billion euros from a reduced allocation to the generation fund for investments. A further 1.5 billion euros are to come from a deferral of the repayment of a billion-euro loan from the coronavirus pandemic. However, this requires an amendment to the constitution, which is no longer a given with the current majority in parliament - the AfD and the one member of the Free Voters have a blocking minority.

According to the constitution, Saxony must repay loans within just eight years, while other states take decades to do so. Originally, all parliamentary groups in the state parliament had spoken out in favor of extending the deadline. The CDU and AfD later backed away from this.