For the first time since the Second World War, Germany enters the new year, 2024, without an adopted federal budget because, despite previous plans, it has to reduce expenditures by 17 billion euros. The government has already made a decision to remove part of the cost of electricity, gas and fuel, which means higher expenses for every household. It is especially painful for farmers to delete the more favorable price of diesel for agriculture from the budget, threatening demonstrations and blockades right after the Christmas holidays. Airplane flights will also become more expensive, and the subsidy for the purchase of electric cars will be removed. Despite these problems, both the leading parties and the opposition agree to increase spending on helping young people.
As of June 14 of this year, every German citizen born in 2005 receives a so-called "cultural passport" containing 200 euros for their eighteenth birthday. They can spend that amount on buying books, theater or concert tickets, gramophone records or other sound carriers, but nothing else. The decision was made by the federal parliament, which says: "In this way, we want to interest young people in the culture of our country."
Some commentators say that in this way the German identity is strengthened. The cultural passport is not, however, limited to German culture and German German authors, all the culture of humanity is considered a wealth.
An inheritance for every German
In connection with the position of young Germans, the thought of the unfairness of the life chances for the children of less affluent citizens also appeared. The Bureau of Statistics announced that in Germany, on average, 85.000 euros are inherited after the death of ancestors, however, the vast majority - 400 billion euros per year - is inherited by only 10 percent of citizens. That is why the government has a proposal on the table that every German should receive 20.000 euros for his eighteenth birthday, which he could invest in work or studies. The expenditure would be financed by higher taxation of the largest inheritances.
The Congress of Young Socialists - the youth wing of the Social Democratic Party, which includes Chancellor Olaf Scholz - did not agree with such a procedure. They believe that it is too small a sum, they propose that 18 euros be paid to everyone for their 60.000th birthday.
The Christian-Democratic opposition proposes that aid is not paid out individually, but through greater investments in education, primarily in universities.
It is not likely that a decision on compulsory inheritance will be made for everyone in the next year, but it is characteristic that a public discussion on the subject has begun in Germany and that it is almost certain that sooner or later it will be adopted for the sake of a more equal entry of young German citizens into working life. .
An almost identical law was passed in Austria, and a similar one in Great Britain.
JH/Spiegel/TAZ/NDR
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