Overview

• Finance Minister Robert Crumbach disclosed roughly €30 million in planned consultant and expert contracts for 2025, compared with nearly €19 million actually spent in 2024.
• In the first half of 2025, the government awarded 31 contracts and spent about €5.6 million on expert reports, according to official responses to a CDU inquiry.
• The Agriculture Ministry’s largest items include around €1.2 million for a wolf hotline, livestock damage assessments and recovery of dead wolves, and €1.1 million for aquatic-plant monitoring through 2028.
• CDU lawmaker Michael Schierack criticizes a rapid expansion of the “consultant business” and warns against creating a costly substitute administration, while Crumbach dismisses the outcry and emphasizes that data can be requested at any time.
• In February, the budget-control committee ended the annual report on external contracts at the SPD/BSW majority’s urging, a move the State Audit Office had cautioned against after volumes rose from €2.1 million in 2019 to €12 million in 2023.