BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The fund for the program for climate-friendly new construction is empty. As the Federal Building Ministry announced in Berlin, no new applications for the program can be submitted to the state-owned KfW development bank as of Thursday because the funds have been exhausted. By Wednesday, more than 18,000 applications had been approved, meaning that around 46,000 climate-friendly housing units had been requested.

Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) said: "The demand for our new-build requirement has exceeded our expectations. After just three months, the demand pot for climate-friendly new construction was almost empty, so we had to increase it to almost two billion euros." New applications could be submitted as soon as the 2024 federal budget came into force.

On Wednesday, the coalition's leaders reached an agreement in principle on how to plug the billion-euro gaps in the 2024 budget. The budget is expected to be passed by the Bundestag in January.

Harsh criticism from the construction industry and opposition

The construction industry criticized that the "claims disaster" is continuing. Peter Hübner, President of the Federation of the German Construction Industry, said that by suspending the new construction order, the federal government was proving that it had learned nothing from the mistakes of last year's receivables freeze. "A run on receivables at the end of the year is not a success. It shows the great uncertainty on the market. Nobody knows what will happen next and everyone is trying to secure the last scraps." According to Hübner, it is already a reality that every second company in the housing construction sector is suffering from a lack of orders and the housing shortage in Germany is growing from week to week.

Jan-Marco Luczak, construction policy spokesperson for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, spoke of the biggest housing crisis in Germany for decades. "But instead of taking decisive countermeasures and breaking the downward spiral, the traffic lights are arguing and delaying important decisions to make construction faster and more cost-effective. Now the demand for climate-friendly new construction is also being overturned." This is a slap in the face for companies and private builders./hoe/DP/mis