The federal cabinet today adopted the Federal Government draft of the 2023 federal budget, including the budget of the Federal Ministry for Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. According to the draft budget, the Economic Affairs Ministry’s expenditure will total approx. €13.1 billion; this corresponds to a rise in the budget of around €2.8 billion compared to the previous fiscal planning. Funding to promote business and research, etc., accounts for about €11.5 billion of the budget. The Ministry’s budget will increase by €1.7 billion compared with 2022.


The Ministry’s budget focuses on the following priorities:

  • International cooperation on the hydrogen ramp-up is being funded so that Germany can be supplied on favourable terms with green hydrogen in future. Approx. €223 million has been earmarked for this in 2023. Also, commitment appropriations totalling €3.6 billion have been allocated for the H2Global programme, which is to build up supply chains to Germany by means of long-term purchase contracts with partners outside Europe.
  • Around €685 million has been set aside for the International Climate Initiative in 2023. This initiative is the central platform for the funding of international climate action and biodiversity. This funding is particularly crucial for developing countries.
  • Additional funding of €274 million is to be provided for the leasing of four gas storage and regasification vessels in order to boost precautionary measures, safeguard the energy supply, and protect the economy in the current crisis, and funding is also to go towards the protection of the economy in the current crisis, e.g. to fully finance the €5 billion grant programme for energy-intensive companies (€4 billion in the 2022 supplementary budget, €1 billion in the 2023 budget).
  • €10 million is provided for the Sovereign Tech Fund (STF) in order to give better protection against attacks for open source code in, for example, critical infrastructure, and to strengthen Germany’s and Europe’s digital sovereignty. More funding is also being allocated in 2023 to the Central Innovation Programme for SMEs (ZIM), the Investing-in-the-Future Programme for vehicle manufacturers and the component supplier industry, and the European Space Agency (ESA).
  • The Economic Affairs Ministry’s budget includes €450 million in 2023 for the second Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on microelectronics to boost the innovative capacity and competitiveness of European industry. €180 million is earmarked for another European project, the IPCEI on cloud and data processing, to promote the development of the next generation of cloud and edge infrastructure.
  • €82.9 million has been allocated in 2023 for GAIA-X, the project to build up a powerful and competitive, secure and trusted data infrastructure for Europe. This is being backed by the GAIA-X funding competition, with funding of around €42 million in the budget.
  • The Africa Business Fund receives €10 million each year to promote innovative and sustainable German exports to Africa via export credit insurance at favourable conditions.

The cabinet has yet to adopted the 2023 business plan for the Energy and Climate Fund in addition to the draft 2023 budget. This is to take place in the near future before the draft legislation is brought to the Bundestag and forwarded to the Bundesrat.