After the federal cabinet approved the government’s draft budget for 2025 on July 17, the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) has been forced to reduce the gigabit funding pot for 2024 by one billion euros. Already in May this year, it published a new call for Gigabit Funding 2.0, which called for 3 billion euros in funding for nationwide expansion. This amount will now be reduced by a third
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The State Secretary in the BDMV, Stephan Schnorr (FDP), explains in a letter to the federal states, which is available online on Heise: “It is good news that, despite the tense budget situation, we will continue to strongly support the fiber optic expansion in 2025.” To this purpose, the federal government is bringing around 900 million euros, in particular transformation approvals and one billion euros into the budget for the development bank Creditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) program, “New approvals for broadband expansion projects as part of Gigabit Funding”.
However, it was necessary to “adjust” the funds available for new approvals for 2024 by around 2 billion euros, writes Schnorr. As a result, the “state limit for this year” also had to be revised downwards. At least this could ensure that broadband funding will continue “at all”. According to Schnorr, the fund should only support those “where catching up is most needed.” The network operators’ own economic expansion continues to make great progress. They will “continue to invest heavily in the future so that fiber optic expansion in Germany can proceed uninterrupted.”
Bavaria: “A crushing blow to the digital future”
Bavarian Minister of Finance and Home Affairs Albert Feueracker (CSU) saw the news as a “bitter blow” For Germany’s digital future and for municipalities in rural areas. The federal government is drastically cutting funding for fiber optic expansion and “totally nowhere”. This is “clear evidence of wrong priorities and ignorant behavior” by the traffic light coalition. In 2024, municipalities in Bavaria alone will only have 295 million euros available instead of 460 million.
Sven Knapp of the Federal Association of Broadband Communications (Breco) believes that the funding cuts are understandable given the state’s lack of money. This does not come at the expense of fiber optic expansion, “on the contrary”. Because there is now likely to be less funding for areas “in which a fairly rapid, self-economic expansion would be possible”. It is now “even more important to use existing funding in a targeted manner” in areas where “Internet coverage is particularly poor” and cannot be expanded without state money. In any case, gigabit funding should be designed in such a way that “frustrating funding applications are not even submitted”. In this way, “unnecessary efforts in municipalities and companies” can be avoided.
When the originally planned funding amount was announced, Breco and telco association VATM pointed out that BMDV was trying to pour unnecessary billions into bureaucratic funding arrangements that would hold back expansion. According to the revised call, at least 100 million euros should still be available for a “gap closure pilot program”. This targets small areas that are not being developed as part of planned, ongoing or completed independent gigabit expansions. However, in May, industry associations again considered the funding provided for this to be too low.
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