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Eastern states in the black - with western cash
Published: 31 Oct 12 10:54 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20121031-45877.html
Half of Germany’s federal states have pulled themselves into the black, new figures show, while their overall debt has practically halved over the last year. The eastern state of Saxony has the healthiest finances.
- States split as Bavaria fights finance transfer - Society (17 Jul 12)
- East German payments 'no longer needed' - National (20 Mar 12)
- FDP threatens to abolish solidarity tax for former East Germany - Politics (23 Jul 11)
Half of the country’s 16 states are in the black, with Saxony leading the way – in total figures and per-capita rates. It showed a surplus of €1.4 billion, which works out as €349 per resident.
Saxony is followed in the per-capita finances rankings by three other former eastern states – Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Berlin and Thuringia. The first state from the former west is Bavaria in fifth place.
The figures are likely to reignite the debate about the financial transfer which still functions between western and eastern states, the Handelsblatt said.
The four top states in the per-capita surplus ranking receive between them two-thirds of the €7.3 billion that is redistributed from west to east, the paper said.
Berlin in particular relies on this money to keep its head above water, while of the net donor states, only Bavaria has managed to remain in surplus. Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg and Hesse are all deeply in debt, the paper said.
The continuing solidarity payments was briefly a topic this March in the run-up to the North Rhine-Westphalia state election, with the mayors of several cities in the Ruhr region complaining they were raiding their budgets to help eastern colleagues who did not need it as much as they did.
A veteran Bavarian politician also took aim at the fiscal transfers in a book published this summer which called for independence for the southern state – at least in part to free it from the solidarity payments to the east.
The Local/hc
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