According to a report, the federal government has spent 439.7 billion euros over the past three years to deal with the corona pandemic.
As the “Welt am Sonntag” reports, citing a statement by the Federal Ministry of Finance for the Bundestag’s budget committee, 66.2 billion euros of this went to economic aid for companies, professional sports clubs and cultural event organizers. The costs for protective equipment, vaccinations and tests add up to 63.5 billion euros.
According to the report, budgetary burdens from the second Corona Tax Assistance Act in the amount of 27.9 billion euros follow in third place. These included the temporary reduction in VAT and the child bonus.
Grants to the Employment Agency, with which the federal government shared, among other things, the costs of the short-time work regulation during the Corona period, are estimated at 24.2 billion euros for the years 2020 to 2022, according to the “Welt am Sonntag”, the compensation payments for bed capacities provided in hospitals with 18.5 billion euros.
Additional support services paid by the federal states are therefore not included in the figures.
According to the list, part of the aid flowed back into the federal budget, as the newspaper further reported. After emergency aid of 14.1 billion euros was paid out to small companies and the self-employed in the first phase of the 2020 pandemic, largely unchecked, the recipients have paid back 1.4 billion euros over the past two years after checks.
According to the report, the total of 439.7 billion euros not only includes expenditure for the direct support of citizens, companies and the health sector: allocations to the climate and transformation fund (KTF) also appear in the calculation. After 26.2 billion euros in 2020, another 60 billion euros were shifted to the KTF in 2021. (AFP)
