After recalcitrant cabinet colleagues have slowed down the finance minister on the way to the draft budget for months, things are moving. Christian Lindner has distributed the missing 20 billion euros according to an internal key – with the backing of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor.
Thus, under the explosive letters of the FDP chairman, the names of Olaf Scholz and Robert Habeck and thus the SPD and the Greens are also invisible, as it were. Each minister has been informed in writing what funds he will have at his disposal next year.
Now he has to see how he can best manage within the scope of his possibilities. This is pragmatic, because where something can be dispensed with after years of "more and more", every head of department knows best.
As long as he could have hope that shredding would take place elsewhere, it was rational to refrain from proposing his own cuts. This blockade of silence has now been broken. So it could still be something with the cabinet decision before the summer break.