Question: What do a professional tennis tournament, orphaned reptiles and affordable rental apartments have in common? Answer: All three benefit from the federal government’s debt-financed special fund in the Free State of Bavaria.
Around 15.7 billion euros are expected to flow into the Free State from Berlin’s large pot of money over the next twelve years. On average, that’s around 1.3 billion per year – or around a hundred euros per inhabitant.
A good seven billion euros will already flow in the next two years – after all, all this money should quickly have a noticeable economic effect. Around 70 percent of these funds in Bavaria are reserved for municipal investments. The political target for the use of funds can be found in the new budget of the Free State of Bavaria in Chapter 13: The money is intended to “resolve deficits in the infrastructure,” it says, “in order to create an essential basis for sustainable economic growth.”
But where exactly does the Free State of Bavaria want to invest the extra money? This can also be seen in the budget. A large part of the funds goes into stone and concrete: around one billion euros – including modern equipment – into universities, around 1.5 billion euros into the expansion and renovation of schools and daycare centers. Another billion euros have been reserved for municipal housing construction, around 400 million of which will flow over the next two years. A good 550 million euros are earmarked for the digitalization of financial administration, for example. Bavaria’s hospitals are to receive 260 million euros.
Debt money from Berlin for tennis courts, reptiles and Bavarian police vehicles
So far, so on target. However, if you look through the expenditure list more closely, you can also come across curiosities whose impact on sustainable economic growth is at least questionable: for example, the expansion of the tennis facility at the Munich tennis club Iphitos eV is being funded with ten million euros. The professional tennis tournament “BMW Open” takes place there every year.
The Ministry of the Environment is also apparently hoping for an economic boost by funding the construction of a reptile sanctuary with eight million euros. The Bavarian police receive 200 million euros for their procurement budget, including 20 million euros for the “purchase of company vehicles”. To what extent this investment can resolve infrastructure deficits is unclear. Especially since with an expenditure volume of almost 150 billion euros by the end of 2027, money for new police cars should also be found in the normal state budget financed without debt.
Other posts also raise questions: Flood protection is certainly important. Will 115 million euros from the debt-financed special fund really create sustainable economic growth? 65 million euros should also flow into the structural G9 adaptation of high schools – an infrastructure deficit that the Free State could have remedied since the decision to return to nine-level high schools in 2017.
Füracker: All investments make an important contribution to getting the economy going again
“We use our share of the special fund responsibly, proactively and purposefully for both state and municipal investments,” said Bavaria’s Finance Minister Albert Füracker (CSU) when asked. Especially in economically difficult times, investments of all kinds “make an important contribution to getting the economy going again,” he believes. However, Füracker does not want to comment on individual expenditure items.
The so-called faction reserve is also causing frowns not only among the state parliament opposition. In this way, members of the CSU and Free Voters government factions support projects in their constituencies. There were more than 300 positions on the list for 2024/25. Total volume: 100 million euros. Even 110 million euros are planned for the next two years – which is why Green budget expert Claudia Köhler complains: “The Söder government is inflating its self-service pot to new sizes and handing out constituency gifts.”
In fact, the government representatives even have an impact beyond Bavaria’s borders: they even recently found 30,000 euros in the parliamentary group reserve for a school in Burkina Faso. In contrast, the Malching bull seems downright down-to-earth: The 140,000 euros that the government factions gave to design the village square of the 1,200-inhabitant community in the Passau district were primarily intended for the bronze sculpture of a cattle. The 800 kilo truck has been in place since last summer.
