BERLIN (Reuters). BERLIN (Reuters). Christian Lindner, German Finance Minister has asked fellow cabinet members for help in countering higher spending by cutting budgets elsewhere within their departments. Two people who are familiar with the draft government budget 2022 told Reuters Tuesday.

These guidelines represent a change in Berlin’s fiscal policies after two years’ of unprecedented net borrowing and state spending in order to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on European citizens and businesses.

Handelsblatt, a German newspaper first reported the incident.

Lindner is the party leader for the prudent Free Democrats (FDP), which is the smallest member of Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition, which also includes the pro-spending Greens and the environmentist Greens.

The Greens demanded that the government super-charge its climate funds with unpaid debts of 60 billion euros (68.17 billion dollars) during coalition negotiations last year. This was to enable more public spending for climate change adaptation.

Still, Lindner as well the FDP continue to work with the FDP in order to restore the federal budget’s alignment with the currently suspended debt limit from 2023.

According to two sources familiar with the budget draft for 2022, Lindner, and Werner Gatzer the Finance Secretary plan to exempt the Constitution’s debt brake rule from this year. This will allow net new borrowing to exceed 100 billion euro.

Sources said that if other ministries require additional funding, they must make the appropriate savings in another department.

Source: “Additional expenditure must be financed with appropriate counter measures, such as reallocating funds within the department or raising revenue through measures such subsidy reduction.”

Germany took on record debt last year of 215billion euros following unprecedented borrowing of 130billion euros in 2020 to fund measures during the coronavirus epidemic.

Scholz and Lindner both argue that Germany should return to fiscally conservative policies and decrease its debt burden once the coronavirus pandemic has ended. This is because the country needs to be prepared for the next crisis.

The coalition agreement also included the parties agreeing to explore new methods of spending public money, such as the Federal Agency for Real Estate (Bima), which could finance an increase in social housing and additional debt that would not otherwise be covered under the debt rules.

($1 = 0.8802 euros)