The budget is at the centre of attention. The key issue is ensuring the provisional budget management for 2025.

We managed to pass the tax relief, child benefits, and child allowances very quickly, contrary to all expectations. A major goal would be to finalise the law to combat financial crime, in order to establish the new authority.

It would address the weaknesses in the fight against financial crime in Germany that were flagged during the last review by the Financial Action Task Force. We committed to establishing the AMLA, the EU authority for anti-money laundering, in Frankfurt.

In the last week of January, the Bundestag could pass the law if a majority is in favour. The decision lies with the parliament. We are hopeful that it will happen.

Exactly. The Financial Market Digitalization Act was particularly important. We received a lot of support from the financial market. We also succeeded in amending the statute of the European Investment Bank to make capital use more efficient.

We are trying to bundle a few points into an omnibus law and push them through despite all the political excitement. This includes capital relief for promotional banks.

With the Tax Reform Act, it seemed for a long time that there would be no majority in the Bundestag or Bundesrat. Suddenly, it was there. So it made sense to prepare the government draft in the cabinet. Both the Union and the FDP publicly expressed general approval.

For me, it is one of the greatest disappointments that we couldn't complete the reforms in occupational and private pensions during this legislative period. We had made significant progress in the coordination process. All the groundwork has been done and received broad approval. Therefore, we firmly believe that the work is not lost. It is necessary to make progress in all three pillars of pension provision.

That's incorrect. The SPD election program explicitly supports the targeted promotion of occupational pensions and private pensions. „We want to expand offerings without contribution guarantees but with higher expected returns“ is a quote from the SPD election program that was adopted last Saturday.

In the interdepartmental coordination, there was broad consensus on almost all proposals from the private pension focus group. Standardised models for reference portfolios played a major role, and there was broad agreement among all departments that we need effective tax incentives.

Our joint initiative with the EU Commission to reduce bureaucracy has received a lot of support – but now we need to take it seriously and move towards concrete implementation. The wave of companies that will be subject to additional sustainability reporting under CSRD will be very large – the next phase starting on January 1, 2026 would affect about 13,000 German companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Each of them will need to provide around 1,000 data points or at least explain why fewer are provided – in addition to the already existing sustainability reporting obligations. Indirectly, many more companies will be affected.

Our proposal is to delay the sustainability reporting obligation for all companies that would have to report under CSRD requirements for the 2025 fiscal year or later by two years. We should also completely abandon the additional sectoral reporting under CSRD, as well as the entire taxonomy reporting obligations. The time gained by the two year delay should be used to rethink a significantly streamlined, effective, and efficient system for sustainability reporting.

In addition to the reporting obligations for banks and insurers, companies need to fulfill further reporting obligations to obtain financing. Just last week, the European Banking Authority introduced a new wave of ESG reporting requirements that even the smallest savings banks must comply with. No financial institution has the necessary information on hand – they have to request it from their corporate clients, which triggers a new wave of bureaucracy.

The different reporting regimes should be synchronised so that each data point only has to be reported once. Every CFO could tell absurd stories about how the same data has to be reported multiple times. We need more fundamental regulations and less micromanagement. Additionally, European and international regulations must be aligned and interpreted uniformly.

We must have greater trust in companies. We must establish principles and not prescribe every single sentence or data point. Companies need to assess what is relevant.

The parliamentary procedure was in full swing when the coalition broke apart. It's likely that the implementation law will not be passed during this legislative period, given the current state of the discussions. However, we are still legally obligated to implement the CSRD. Then we will also see what changes have been made to the EU regulations for companies that will be required to report starting in 2026.

At the end of last year, I discussed securitisation with my French counterpart Éric Lombard. The core issue is improving the framework for securitisation in a risk-appropriate way. The German-French cooperation here is very important, and we agree that securitisation can make a significant contribution to financing the real economy. It will come down to two major topics: How can we simplify the securitisation framework? This concerns the granularity of documentation obligations, and the types of reports. The fixed cost burden of each securitisation is very high due to complex disclosure obligations and analyses.

... concerns all the potential capital burdens. The cost of a securitisation is often much higher than even its riskiest parts. This leads to a lack of capital efficiency. Sectoral issues also come into play – such as the high capital burden for insurers and banks from securitisations.

Yes, there will be movement on this. The new EU Commissioner, Maria Luís Albuquerque, is working on ideas. Germany and France are actively involved. We expect legislative proposals that will be high on the priority list. Those who praised the Draghi report must also be ready to engage. Capital Markets Union, including risk-appropriate improvements in securitisations, is very important in the Draghi report.

Especially with regard to Capital Markets Union, there is broad agreement. My French colleague has a very good understanding, through his work at the French development bank Caisses des Dépôts, of where things are getting stuck. I can have very deep and productive discussions with him.

Yes. Germany is an open market for international investors in our banks, insurers, and asset managers. Of the 15 systemically relevant banks in Germany, five are not German. We have seen takeovers of German private banks by Dutch and French banks in recent years. We will continue to have many cross-border activities, and that's a good thing. There should be no misunderstanding. It's absolutely crucial that Germany remains an open banking market. We are a global economy with a very high share of export and import activities. These need to be financed.

This is about an individual case. Transparency was lacking. Hostile takeovers are not a viable strategy in the banking sector, especially when it comes to systemically important banks.

This is not about strategies, but about trust and transparency in large systemically important banks.

Above all, Germany as a business location benefits from the „Made-in-Germany“ bonus included in the SPD's programme for government. This involves targeted investment subsidies for companies investing in Germany and extending tax incentives for research to larger companies. The Federal Constitutional Court has set high requirements for a wealth tax. A wealth tax should not negatively impact Germany's attractiveness or willingness to invest.

Profits distributed to private investors as dividends have already been taxed at the corporate level. Under the existing flat tax, this often results in higher taxation than under the income tax rate. The total tax burden on dividends currently stands at around 48%.

I was present at all of Olaf Scholz's discussions during his tenure as Federal Finance Minister. At that time, it was not feasible to reach a consensus in Europe, nor was it under former Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

The prediction that we would manage without a supplementary budget and without needing a budget freeze has proven accurate. It appears that a significant portion of the 10 billion euros reserve can be preserved and carried forward into 2025. This is necessary because the gap in the federal budget draft for 2025 persists and has widened rather than narrowed.

There is no solution to this gap yet. I am somewhat surprised by recent discussions about extraordinary expenditures. The money would have to come from somewhere. I have not yet heard a concrete proposal on where cuts should be made. You know that the Chancellor made a proposal for this at the beginning of November. Ultimately, this led to the coalition's breakdown. We will need significant discipline in the provisional budget management for 2025, even without these additional ideas.

The key point is: It must be targeted. We cannot simply increase flexibility. A reform must focus on measures that sustainably and permanently enhance our growth potential. Existing possibilities within the debt brake can also be better utilized.

I advocate for a much more precise definition of investment, with little room for interpretation. The definition must be linked to an increase in our potential growth, which is currently only at 0.5%. The structurally weak potential growth is the core problem of our economy. Incentives for private and public investments, reducing bureaucracy, and attracting more skilled workers are examples of how we can and must increase our potential growth.

We have now initiated the consultation with states and associations on the specific proposal. The cabinet can approve it afterward. We will not incur new national debt but will redistribute debt between municipal, state, and federal levels. The goal is to enable municipalities with high legacy debts to reinvest in kindergartens, schools, and public transport – while also creating the right incentives to prevent new debt.

Our proposal is a regulation allowing the federal government, in conjunction with the states, to take over the legacy debt of overly indebted municipalities on a one-time basis. This requires a constitutional amendment, meaning a two-thirds majority in both the Bundestag and Bundesrat. Therefore, the initiative must be supported by both the federal and state governments. In each individual case, the state concerned must also participate.