Mobile working saves space: Federal Ministry of Finance stops extension

Mobile working saves space
Federal Ministry of Finance stops expansion

07/13/2023, 02:30 am

Minister of Finance Lindner forgoes additional office space. His house announces that the planned expansion will be stopped as expected. The German taxpayers thus save 600 and 800 million euros.

After a review, the Federal Ministry of Finance is abandoning its planned extension building in Berlin. “Since mobile working has reduced the need for office space, the planned new building for the ministry will be stopped,” the ministry commented in the evening Twitter a report of the “world”.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner had already made it clear in March that he did not want to stick to the previous plans for expanding the Finance Ministry on Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse. The plan was “reviewed with the aim of revising it,” the ministry said at the time. The building should cost between 600 and 800 million euros and should not be built until 2025 at the earliest. The planning was commissioned in 2019 by the then Minister of Finance and current Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

According to the “Welt” in ministry circles, the responsible federal agency for real estate tasks (Bima) will now revise the previous plans. Instead of the expansion of the Ministry of Finance, a building complex is to be built that can be used by all federal departments, including as an alternative quarters when the actual offices are renovated. The construction of apartments should also be part of the new plans. According to the report, the revised plans should be available by the end of the year.

The plans for the expansion of the Federal Chancellery are still valid. A call for tenders for the renovation of the roof areas was already published in May. One is also planned complex extension the German government headquarters for almost 800 million euros. Finance Minister Lindner had also criticized this extension.