The window of opportunity to be able to pass a budget for the year 2026 is becoming increasingly smaller:
“We would have liked to work with a biennial budget again,” says Martin Huber, parliamentary group leader and financial policy spokesperson for the Volt group in the Römer. “With a biennial budget, we would have achieved greater planning security, both for the administration and for the city’s grant recipients. Furthermore, we would have enabled future political leaders to better concentrate on the actual political priorities of a budget, for example, in the form of supplementary budgets.”
However, now even the single-year budget for 2026 is in jeopardy, as the Magistrate has still not been able to agree on a joint draft budget, for which, in turn, a secure majority would first have to be organized in the city council assembly. “The budget preparation is always an intensive process with many discussions and decisions. It’s about finding a common path so that the city remains capable of acting and functioning. But we expect the entire Magistrate to come to an agreement as quickly as possible; otherwise, it will become completely unrealistic to agree on a compromise with a democratic opposition group based on a joint draft. After all, the Greens, SPD, and Volt no longer have their own majority to pass the draft budget on their own,” Martin Huber states.
From Volt’s perspective, it is also completely unrealistic to believe, given the new political situation, that a significant replanning of individual departments would be possible again; this would lead to the technically elaborately prepared draft budget having to be completely redrawn in the worst-case scenario. That could take months and would in any case fall into the period after the local elections in March 2026.
“Even as the election campaign approaches, all democratic forces should continue to keep our duties in the interest of the city in mind. The scenario of not passing another budget in this legislative period is disastrous. For an indefinite period, the work of municipal offices and grant recipients would be severely restricted. Even after the election, a new majority would first have to be found and come to an agreement, only to then have to pass a budget retroactively for 2026, instead of being able to look to the future. If the budget fails, it will burden us in Frankfurt for many years, because it would inevitably establish that the budgets for the coming years could also no longer be submitted in the preceding year,” says Chris Pfaff, Local Lead of Volt Frankfurt.
In Volt’s view, awareness of the consequences of provisional budget management must be significantly raised, because in this case, the city could only perform its legally prescribed mandatory duties. Fundamentally, no new projects and investments could be initiated, important infrastructure projects would thus be slowed down, which in turn leads to cost increases. Furthermore, no new staff positions could be created, which would further increase the planning uncertainties in the municipal offices. The provisional budget management would also have concrete effects on social agencies, associations, and cultural funding, as voluntary grants that are not already contractually guaranteed could no longer be paid out.
“It is true that in recent years we have already had the situation where the budget was not submitted in the preceding year and we ended up in provisional budget management, but with the budget planning, there was at least a clear perspective for an end to this situation; this time it would be completely open-ended,” says Martin Huber.
