[HIGHLIGHTS] Lindner calls for 250 million to be saved in the agricultural budget - Özdemir reacts

Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) has urged his cabinet colleagues to save. Agriculture Minister Cem zdemir (Greens) is said to see little leeway in his department.

The deadline for the austerity proposals, which were originally supposed to be presented on April 19th, now only has to be delivered on May 2nd. Whether this will succeed is questionable, says the German Finance Ministry's spokesman. The minister believes that a large part of the budget is tied up in social insurance. Only a small proportion of the budget consists of truly movable funds, he adds.. The German Finance Ministry's spokesman says that the spokesman's comments are not meant to be taken as an indication of a change in policy. The spokesman adds that the spokesman's remarks are not intended to be seen as a suggestion that the government should change its policy on social insurance but rather as a call for a joint effort to solve the budget crisis. The spokesman adds that the spokesman says that "the finance minister" is referring to himself. Cuts in the 2024 federal budget led to weeks of farmer protests a few months ago. Farmers didn't want to miss out on tax breaks for agricultural diesel and vehicle taxes. The federal government had already partially given in and withdrawn the planned deletion of the vehicle tax exemption for agricultural and forestry machinery. But there were increasing signs that the federal government would not implement the farmers' association's demands. The government is now proposing a tax-free risk compensation reserve for farmers. This would significantly overcompensate for the loss of agricultural diesel from 2026, which would save around €430 million in the budget. But zdemir said in the question and answer session with the agricultural journalists that such a reserve would burden the budget with up to a billion euros. He also said that he didn't think the extent of the removal of agricultural subsidies was right and that he himself had been taken by surprise. "We went overboard," he said later and promised not to accept the traffic light decision on agricultural diesel subsidies.