More than €500 million in German child benefit allowance payments was sent outside the country in 2023, government data provided to local media outlets has shown.
The documents, reported on by news outlet Bild on October 31, also revealed that the country was on track to see another €500 million in child payments sent abroad in 2024, although the total value of such payments was down by 0.58 per cent in the first half of this year.
According to Bild, a total of €525.7 million was sent to bank accounts outside Germany last year, with a further €258.5 being sent abroad in similar fashion in the first six months of 2024.
That compared to just €35.8 sent abroad this way in 2010.
Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, which is responsible for the child allowance, reportedly said that the cash was being used to provide for 320,098 children, although the government body said it was unsure how many of these minors held German citizenship.
It added that all those who paid taxes in Germany — even if they did not reside in the country — were entitled to the payments should they have children. The same went for some migrant workers in Germany who have children back home.
Antje Tillmann MP, the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) Bundestag economy tsar, defended the payments as being mostly in line with German and European Union law.
She admitted that some of the payments involved “annoying cases of abuse”, with Bild reporting that there had been numerous cases of gang-related fraud in recent years.
German foreign minister and Green MP Annalena Baerbock has been criticised by her own coalition partners over her continued support for NGO migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea. https://t.co/K6aWlcsYFC
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 22, 2024
