Austria's government braces savings package: processes in the Kanzeramt on the brink?

Austria's government braces savings package: processes in the Kanzeramt on the brink?

In a dramatic step towards budget consolidation, the Austrian traffic light coalition has adopted a billion dollar savings package. As kosmo.at , over 1 billion euros are to flow into the state treasury, which is part of a comprehensive plan for saving a total of 6.4 billion euros 2025 serves. The ministries are required to reduce their expenses by 15 percent, with exceptions to rental costs. The Ministry of Defense is particularly affected by 166 million euros in savings and the Ministry of Justice with 146.3 million euros. This is done, while Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler's department only has to save 5.5 million euros, which illustrates the different burdens of the ministries.

At the same time, the Berlin Senate has set the red pencil and wants to save three billion euros by 2025, according to the report of rbb24 . The largest incision affects the areas of traffic and the environment, where 660 million euros are to be reduced alone. The new 29-euro ticket is to be canceled without replacement, and costs for local public transport and bicycle infrastructure are drastically reduced. While the coalition emphasizes that these measures are necessary to meet the debt brake, fears that the quality of the public offers may suffer.

consequences for the public sector

In both cases, it becomes clear that the cuts intervene deeply into the core areas of public services. In Berlin, the savings also affect culture: around 130 million euros are to be deleted from the budget for cultural institutions, including significant reductions among Berlin theaters. In Austria, the abolition of educational leave and the cancellation of tax breaks for environmentally friendly technologies are assessed as particularly serious. The savings could have long -term effects on the quality and availability of public services in both countries