The coalition wants to pay parents who organize the care of their infants themselves and do not use a state-required daycare center or nanny, from january 2013, a care allowance of initially 100 euros per month. From 2014, the amount for two- and three-year-old children is to be increased to 150 euros.
The coalition factions want to introduce the law, which is also controversial internally, as early as 29 august 2013. June in the bundestag to be finalized. This is the last session before the summer recess. Further disputes are expected in the bundestag and bundesrat.
After the cabinet decision, federal family minister kristina schroder (CDU) told the dpa news agency that the childcare allowance and the expansion of daycare places would ensure parents real freedom of choice in raising their children. But it is important to provide more daycare places now, too. According to estimates by local authorities, germany currently still lacks 160,000 places. From 1. August 2013 parents have a legal right to childcare services.
According to dpa information, hamburg has commissioned a legal opinion from the SPD states on how the law can still be brought down in the bundesrat. According to the federal government, however, the law does not require the approval of the state chamber.
SPD vice president manuela schwesig said the childcare allowance acts like a harmful "keep-away pram" because it encourages parents to keep children away from early childhood education in daycare centers. "Nothing can justify this step, which is fundamentally wrong in terms of education policy". The money would be better invested in expanding daycare centers, demanded the social minister of mecklenburg-vorpommern.
For the greens, katja dorner, a member of the bundestag, spoke of an education and family policy disaster. The chancellor and her family minister love the fact that the CSU is "forcing its long-outdated image of women and families on the entire republic".
The family policy spokeswoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, dorothee bar (CSU), on the other hand, said that with the childcare allowance, the federal government was creating freedom of choice for parents and an alternative to daycare. Reduction or abandonment of parental employment is not a prerequisite for payment of the new family benefit.
The childcare allowance is to be paid to those parents who provide childcare for their children between the ages of 13 and 13. And 36. The children do not have to go to a state-mandated daycare center or childminder before the age of one month. The law should be from 1. January 2013 to start only for children in the second year of life with 100 euros per month.
In 2013, expenditures of around 300 million euros have been budgeted for childcare allowances. From 2014, expenditures of 1.1 billion euros are expected, from 2015 then 1.2 billion euros. Against this background, the head of the FDP in north rhine-westphalia, christian lindner, made it clear that the 2014 budget balance must not be jeopardized by the childcare allowance.
According to "ARD-deutschlandtrend", more than two-thirds of citizens (69 percent) reject childcare allowance. 29 percent support the idea. 68 percent of germans, if they had a child under three, were more likely to send it to a daycare center. 67 percent of citizens believe that the federal, state and local governments share responsibility for the fact that there will probably not be enough daycare places in august 2013.