Germany’s highest court has struck down a €150 monthly payment for parents who care for their children at home rather than place them in daycare.
The so-called "caring allowance" was a pet project of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who said it allowed parents a fair choice between subsidised childcare or care in the home.
But critics of the payment, in effect since August 2013 for children between one and three years, say it reinforces inequality. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), attacked the payment, saying it meant that children from immigrant families, in particular, could lose out on important early exposure to the German language.
Statistics show parents of almost 460,000 children receive the payment, a take-up rate of 73 per cent, at a monthly cost of almost €70 million. The SPD, like the CSU a junior coalition partner, said it was “delighted” by the ruling and hoped the funds could instead be invested in childcare.
The complaint to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe was taken by the SPD-run city-state of Hamburg. Yesterday the court agreed with the Hamburg complaint, saying the federal law regulating the payment was unconstitutional because such “duty of care” decisions were the competence of federal states, not the federal government in Berlin.
“Because the federal government lacks the proper authority, the [court] is not concerned with the question of whether child care money would be compatible with fundamental rights,” said court vice-president Ferdinand Kirchhof.
Personal freedoms
This meant the court avoided the arguments that have plagued the payment, in particular whether it impinges on personal freedoms and whether it impedes integration.
Even so, the ruling puts the conservative CSU on the political back-foot in Berlin, weeks after the European Commission launched a challenge to its other main political project: an Autobahn toll for non-German drivers only.
CSU leader Horst Seehofer said Bavaria would continue to pay the care allowance, and hinted it might even increase the monthly sum, but demanded reimbursement from Berlin. "This is about encouraging choice, we in Bavaria have a big heart for children and family," said Andreas Scheuer, CSU general secretary.
