Overview
- Minister-President Boris Rhein said Hesse will no longer enter federally framed agreements after concluding the state cannot afford them.
- He argued the federal government promotes priorities with short bursts of money and then leaves states to shoulder ongoing expenses.
- As an example, he cited the Rule of Law Pact, saying Berlin funds new judge positions for at most one to two years while states pay salaries for decades.
- Rhein described even affluent Hesse as at the limit of its budgetary capacity in remarks published by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland and picked up by national outlets.
- He also dismissed Bavarian leader Markus Söder’s call for merging states and instead urged reform of fiscal equalization, including lower contributions from donor states and conditions for recipients tied to measurable reforms.